


Working Nine To Five

by orphan_account



Category: The Libertines
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prostitution, M/M, Multi, Rentboys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-29
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 04:04:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 92,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6688456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Note: This fic was originally written in 2006 by wondersdontcare @ livejournal. It is archived here as a courtesy to readers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

I‘m sat in my office. He’s down on the street below; I can see him out my window. I can’t work out whether I want to shoot the architect or marry them. He’s mugging someone. Nice boy that he is. We’ve got a bet going round the office about how long it’ll take before he works up the courage to proposition Jules. From the way he’s laying into the guy I don’t think courage would be his problem, but still, I play the game. People looked at me like I was crazy because I picked six months. Everyone else worked in days; I think the second longest was still only just gracing the month mark. But the stakes are high. I have a fiver and my entire soul riding on that bet. Six months.

“Doherty!”

Shrill voice of the boss in my ear. I got told once that small men shout to compensate for their lack of physically intimidating stature. Whoever said this was an idiot. My boss is easily three inches taller than me and resembled the Hulk. Neon lighting made him look green and that shirt hadn’t fit him since 1979. Good year for the roses.

“Sir?”

He softens a bit as I turn to face him. Usually I like having this effect on people as it gets me out of trouble, but it makes his face look like a modern art sculpture of a bulldog’s, made out of ice, melting in record time under the heat of strip lighting. The absence of good dress sense, ironed shirts and a wedding band on his finger once again fails to surprise me.

“I asked you an hour ago for that report.”

I feel like giving him a dead glare. When I was a teenager, I would’ve. Just let my lids fall down on my eyes and look straight through him. I doubt he would’ve burst into tears but the message would’ve been clear. Now I don’t. I won’t. I can’t. Teenage years are all about shouldn’t, wouldn’t. Nothing as imperative as can’t. I miss them. I’d be drunk by now.

“Yeah, sorry, just checking some of the figures.”

This isn’t a lie. In the reflection of my VDU I could see the boy giving the bloke one last knee to the gut before starting to back away. He’s panting. I deliberately look my boss square in the eye.

“Just wanted to make sure, you know…”

The boy has a spectacular arse. No doubt about it. Ten minutes well spent.

His face softens a bit more.

“Well, just, hurry it up, will you? I need it in the next ten minutes.”

Reassuring smile time. He nods and backs away. It never fails.

I swivel my chair back to the window before my boss has even fully backed away from my desk. The boy is still there – I could see the wallet, mobile and watch glinting in his hand. What now? The bloke is still slumping against the wall. He leans forward and whispers something, black hair swinging stage curtain over his face. They pause for a moment, like sinner and priest, before the blokes’ fist comes flying clumsy with rage toward him. The boy leaps back and grins, long fingers taking the money out the wallet and tossing it back at him, flicking his hair back out of his face for once and still smiling. I wish I was a police officer for the first time in my life. Handcuffs would be necessary, but I doubt I’d be able to restrain myself long enough to even get him in the back of the car, let alone all the way to the station so I could have him against the bars, writhing and furious. Do they even have bars in police cells anymore? I really have become frighteningly middle class recently. The boy’s my bit of rough.

Something hit the back of my head. Five minutes ago I wouldn’t have noticed if my trousers had exploded. Considering the fucking heat in my boxers, it was probably a very real possibility, what with the synthetic materials involved in my wrinkled suit. Is it a bonus of sorts that my crotch doubles as a fire hazard? Lord knows.

Jules tosses a lazy smile at me;

“You coming for a pint?”

The half-arsed metric system over here never lost its novelty for him. Bless. I nod.

“What did Meatloaf want anyway?”

Meatloaf is the affectionate name for our boss. Well, I mean it affectionately anyway and I will unless the bastard doesn’t give me a raise in April.

“Just the usual.”

Jules has a wicked set grin in his eyes that I don’t much like.

“You staring out the window at lover boy again?”

He nudges me with his elbow. I go flying. He’s not the sharpest tool in the shed but even he should learn by fucking repetition that I weigh in at about the same as his left leg, so slamming into me with all his body weight will send me careering across the street like a telegraph pole on roller skates. Even Pavlov managed to get dogs to learn by repetition for fuck’s sake.

Frowning to mask my redness with fury:

“No.”

It doesn’t work.

“Yeah, right. I’m just surprised you still let me walk past his fucking alleyway on my way home every night, what with the bet n’everything.”

Julian is fit but he knows it. I want to kick him with my foal legs and grind his pretty, everything-mine’s-not face into the dirty concrete every night. He knows that too, and doesn’t mind, which means I have an ally at work whilst everyone else seems to have too much time for aspirations and little time for camaraderie. They all get promoted and earned at least one zero more than us. Still, we have our moments.

“You’ve walked past him every night and he hasn’t even noticed you yet, why would he start now?”

 

Notice I don’t deny the fact that I care. There’s something about his honest sleepy eyes that makes the think that maybe I’d just burst clean into flames if I did. The universe always seems to be on his side anyway.

Jules shrugs.

“No reason at all. You ever thought that if you want him so bad you should just approach him?”

Julian is also, I should point out, stupid.

In every respect. As a human, as a life form, as a fucking multicellular organism, he is stupid.

Course I could approach him. See that face up close instead of behind glass, watch him lead me up the fire escape stairs, behind that black gloss door and shut it, the noise of the streets around and air vents from our offices drowning out the cries and shouts that’d follow, me leaving thirty quid and my heart behind for him to stuff into his jacket pocket like a fat kid with a donut and squander on whatever it was that he spent it on. Not food, from the look of him. Fags mainly. Not clothes, unless he’d been terribly model chic and bought fifteen pairs of identically ripped jeans and thirteen leather jackets, all worn leather that looked scolding to the touch. I love his jeans; rip in the thigh told he wore no boxers and treated me to whiskey gold thigh. I can imagine its taste. In winter, it made me want to knit him a scarf, a big red one. Now we are nearing spring, I want to hook my cold fingers under it and drag him away by the straining bonds of denim.

But there is no way I’m gonna buy him. I’m too far gone for that. It’d cost me a fortune – I get like that. At school I got a taste for magnesium, burning blinding sparks, stars just for me, and filled my bedroom with it. I got a taste for weed n’all, which probably explained a lot. At uni I got a taste for E and coke and anything that would keep me up until my eyes receded purple into my white skin. That’s probably why I got asked to leave. At my first job I got a taste for the receptionist, Lucy, all brown hair and wild eyes. When I got her I got an even bigger taste for her boyfriend, Patrick. The fact he was the chief executive’s son and heir and her fiancée and long-time family friend and that the boss caught me with good ol’ Patrick’s cock hard between my eager lips was definitely the reason I was asked to leave.

What’s more, the boy on the street is far worse than anything before. I’d be homeless before I even had chance to save myself. I want to shower him in gifts and keep him safe and wait for him to punch me and throw it all back in my face.

“Not fucking paying for it, why the fuck should I?”

Julian bites into the sandwich. My sandwich. And drinks about a third of my beer. Bastard.

“Because –”

He swallows the BLT that I could now only resign myself to imagining the taste of.

“ –We all know you aren’t getting any.” I snort. He ate more of my food. “And it can’t be healthy.”

“Fuck off.”

I snatch the other half of the sandwich back. Julian’s eyes are sad and I feel like I just insulted his mother. I don’t hand it back though.

“And if you are getting any then you’re fucking imagining it’s him anyway, aren’t you?”

There’s one of those fleeting moments of stillness where the doors of opportunity grace themselves open wide and throw themselves at your feet: enough quiet chatter in the pub to cover your words but still allow you to be heard, open face saying that no judgement will be passed when you confide that your right hand is your own best friend and ‘course you imagine him, he’s fucking insatiable. But pride rears its head and shouts loudest from its soapbox.

I light up a cigarette and look like a 1930s starlet. Or so the whiskey chaser (sweet and vicious as the boy’s skin) tells me.

“Jules, I get plenty, ta very much, and I don’t fucking think about him whilst I’m with some blonde bird with perfect tits, thanks.”

Oh, yeah, I don’t tell people I like men. I don’t know why. I think it’s because I like pretending to be open and honest and heart-on-sleeve whilst secretly leading a double life. Also, Julian keeps pressing his sad mate on me, with a face that only a mother (in a coma) could love and a name that sounds Swedish that I always forget without the hair to match. He can be persuasive at times and I’m always a sucker for pleading, so I know I’ll end up in bed with him and regretting it once I’ve inadvertently let him move in with me. After three dates. He looks the needy type. Plus if I’m straight as a die, then the lover boy jokes are all unsubstantiated rumours. Yeah.

Julian gives me a knowing look and burps loudly.

“Still, if you weren't getting any and you were imagining him because he’s got a fucking furious looking face and a glory-arse [Jules’ clever pun on glorious. The wit.] then you really could toss him thirty bucks and run on the memory for a bit at least.”

He winks at me and makes to leave.

Oh, no, he’s getting another whiskey.

Another six whiskeys?

This has potential to end badly. With blood and tears. And – wait, that barmaid’s got blonde hair and perfect tits. Maybe? Something to get the mind away from the boy in the alley. If I end up sucking the guy at the other end of the bar off in the toilets with the taste of the boy’s whiskey thigh swirling high in my mind I might just cry.

Julian looks at his watch. I want to remind him that it’s Friday and we finish at lunch. I want to remind him that he owes me a sandwich. I want to beg him to fuck me in the toilets and burn Nikolai’s number so he can’t offer him to me again. I mostly want to go home, wait for Countdown and miss Richard Whitely.

“Gary’s coming down in an hour. You in?”

This definitely has potential to end badly.

***

I like Gary. He wears a grey suit with trainers and a white t shirt underneath that makes his skin look like Guinness. I’m very drunk by the time he arrives. Shamefully drunk. I don’t even remember where most of the drinks came from. It’s like some magical spirit in the air keeps refilling my glasses, giving me new dirty ones already smeared with lip gloss. I know from the smell of strawberries that accompanies them that the barmaid is the culprit. Still, the red is a gift from the boy’s lips to me, each drink a little closer to him. Or something like that.

So by the time Gary gets here I’m lolling in the corner. What always astounds me is that Gary is incredibly camp for a straight man and I manage to be incredibly straight for a gay man. Or so I hope. I think by that point someone let me put a plastic carnation behind my ear, and I’m resting my head on Didz’s shoulder and looking up at him with lovers’ eyes and singing the song from Aladdin. And stroking his face. Gary just looks at me.

The angles on his suit make my head hurt. Too precise, like he’s chiselled into it. I have no shoulders. No soul. It’s in the alley with the boy I couldn’t touch.

“Hiya, Pete, long time, all that.”

Gary speaks in bizarre syllable patterns. Shakespeare would’ve hated him.

“You, in for, some, yeah?”

Didz’s shoulder is nice and solid. All flesh and bone. The boy is liquid, I’d run right through him. Right now, solid is good, so I shake my head.

“Course he’s in, c’mon!”

Julian wrenches me away. I decide quickly, that whilst him fucking me in the toilets isn’t going to be relegated from my fantasy roster, it’s definitely been usurped by Didz. He’s in accounting and earns roughly double what I do. He wears shirts and waistcoats to work and pointy boots. I don’t know how he gets away with it, aside from being loveable and pretty. He could be my soul mate, as this is all I have too. We could buy a cat. I bet he’d make me call it Didz Junior. I’d love it like a son.

Three of us cram into one cubicle. They are surprisingly spacious and always prey on my worst instincts, especially with Julian’s eyes rapturous as Gary checks theatrically around him before pulling a bag out his pocket, but Gary’s a stocky little sod (works out too much) and occupies more than his fair share of floor space. So that’s why I have to press up against Julian. Hard.

“Hey, woah, c’mon now Pete, I know you like me man but business first, yeah?”

I could hit him. I could kiss him. I could kiss him then hit him. No, no, the other way round. More feisty.

I move slightly, I don’t know what I’m about to do, but its okay because Gary coughs and flicks idly at his nose. He wants paying.

Lines off a pack of Golden Virginia in a toilet isn’t the glamorous life I had planned out back in school. Not quite, anyway. Julian goes first. I am a true gent and even let Gary go before me, mainly because he starts to get so damn twitchy even his breathing starts to smudge before my eyes and I don’t like Francis Bacon paintings, especially not when they come to life. I blink for a minute and Gary’s reassembled himself again.

A fivers’ thrust at me. I clear my throat: apparently I’m about to say something profound and flippant all at the same time. Coz I’m clever.

“Chock’s away squadron leader…”

Julian cracks up.

“Did you just say ‘cocks’, man?”

He’s still laughing. I ignore him and take the mature action and snort my lines and splutter a bit before trying to look all regal again. Gary stops caring and opens the door and leaves. I miss him already. Julian’s still laughing. He’s not nearly as attractive when he laughs. Well, yeah he is, but I don’t like him at that second and my heart has been prone to bouts of fickle at times.

“Fucking Freudian slip that, man…”

“I said ‘chocks’…”

“Knew you wanted to bone that street kid.”

Coke makes Jules even more arrogant than normal.

“Fuck off.”

He jabs me with a finger;

“Knew it, knew it, knew it!”

“My love for him is nothing but pure.”

Julian laughs. Cruelly. Heartlessly. He’s stupid. He wouldn’t understand. My love is nothing but pure, just in the filthiest sense of the word. Arch of the spine against my chest, matted, tangled hair between my fingers, swearing at me, fighting with him over cash. I've got the Midas touch, my boy, I’ll turn you all to gold.

Julian leans against the sink whilst I work out how to extricate myself from the plastic door. I don’t think it likes me. When I get free, I look ridiculous in the mirror. Eyes swallow half my head. If I coughed they’d pop out. I could still see though, coz I can see the boy inside my head, beautiful. My mind tells me he’d smell like Soltan. I'm a joke at times.

He looks pretty, leaning against the sink, I notice. Navy blue suit, skinny tie begging for my fist. White shirt, tan skin, eyes caught in the conflict between alcohol-lethargy and coke hysteria. Lips parted. The boy in the alley’s got a mouth crafted to suck cock, some divine hand created it and gifted it onto that body; Julian’s wasn’t created for that purpose, but I bet it’d be fucking good at it. I’m hard and yanking him in close to me by his skinny skinny tie before he even has chance to protest. And maybe I step forward into him at some point, because he’s leaning against the sink again and there’s a hard thigh against my cock and a hot mouth on mine, lips chapped and tongue taunting, Julian’s hands on my arse. I can’t even tell where mine are. I'm turned back into a horny schoolboy, stealing kisses from my teacher when no one else was around, and I can’t move because all thought and blood has gone to my cock. It’s fucking aching.

And Jules pushes me off, laughing.

“Fucking knew it mate, but I’ve got Stan out there, waiting for me.”

I’ll set fire to him, I decide, because I’m pretty sure that if God gave me the Midas touch, he also gave me laser-vision. Stan’s quite possibly better looking than me and I don’t trust him one bit. He also is our boss’ boss. Because he’s brilliant and a genius or something. And finished Harvard or something. Law degree. Speaks two languages and drives a Porsche 911. Has deliciously black curly hair that acts like finger holds for you to steer his head and keep him going harder and harder and fucking harder onto you until his mouth’s so tight around you and his tongue’s working all round you and you come screaming his name.

The bulge in my trousers doesn’t get any smaller.

He deserves a bit of a flaming.

“But…”

“Go fuck Didz. He’s alright and up for anything. I think he’s straight, but he’ll try anything twice, or so I heard.”

He winks at me and leaves with;

“Besides, you can always think of lover boy.”

Julian is a genius.

Still, I can’t help but feel a pang of jealousy as I re-enter the room and Stan has his tongue in Julian’s ear, then his mouth down his jaw, then teeth at his neck, biting above the collar. Julian carries on his conversation with Nick and someone else whose name I don’t know or care about. Stan flashes his black eyes up at me, a cold look of warning, a smug purple flash of victory as his mouth works a bit too hard and Julian drags his head back up by his hair and kisses him into a seething mass of tension, splintering in the air.

I weigh up my choices. My empty seat remains next to Didz. The barmaid is drawing on a Regal, looking bored but amused by Julian, used to the show by now. And I’m still hard. I could buy Street Boy. No, no, love is pure. I miss Gary.

The barmaid intimidates me for some reason. I don’t know why, I don’t care why; all I know is that I don’t like it. A shiver creeps down my spine. Didz it is then. I didn’t hand over my hard-earned cash to feel inferior. I slam in next to him with a ballerina’s grace that knocks his drink-holding arm and spills beer all over his trousers. I could lick it off. His eyes are smiling and nonplussed, but maybe that’d be too far? Conversation first, perhaps.

“Sorry, shit, didn’t mean to…”

“S’alright, no use crying over spilt beer.”

He smiles. Didz Junior would have to be a tabby cat. Didz’s got tabby eyes, all that mottled brown. His mouth moves in strange ways when he talks, too. And he’s a man. Got stubble. Julian doesn’t. Stan’s too crap to have it. Didz looks dirty. I like it.

“Buy you another, yeah, as compensation?”

 

He cracks into a grin.

“And I thought the serenading me was a pre-emptive apology.”

I blush ridiculously. His eyes smile at me some more. Fingers reach out to me, brush the ends of my hair and send sparks shooting along my spine. They stop by my face and pluck the carnation out from behind my ear, plastic scraping on my skin. I look at him. He leans in, one hand on my knee. I think I’m so hard my cheap suit is starting to wilt under the heat. Fuck, I need to have him.

“Wanna get outta here?”

 

I nearly break his nose with the ferocity of my pulling away and standing up, ready and raring to go. Julian tosses me a dirty smirk. Stan glowers. Didz stands up calmly and walks up to me. He’s shorter than me. I think he could beat me up easily though. He’s muscular – well, in comparison to me anyway. I’d be his housewife.

We stand there and I feel teenage and awkward and gangling, three things which I hate feeling. I could pounce on him right there, knock him backwards onto the floor and straddle him into submission, him biting my tie to keep from screaming my name as I fucked him, hard, give him some carpet burns from the stained floor to remember me by. I think the barmaid would object though. She’s tiny, skinny-wise, but I reckon she could throw us both out by our collars. Scary lady. Didz looks menacing. And dirty. Like Street Boy. The thought of him sends all sorts of possible combinations shooting through my head and I’m dragging Didz along by his shirt cuff before I can even think about it.

***

Didz wears a Rolex. I notice this as he waves his arm up and a taxi comes screeching to a halt, like the world was laid down just for him. If my beady eyes do not deceive me, it’s an Oyster Perpetual Datejust Rolex. An expensive shiny one that brings out all the worst magpie instincts that line the fabric of my soul. I can just imagine Didz is exactly the breed of human that is quite happy to remove all clothing (please God, please, he has to be, just has to) but would not, even with a gun or other deadly weapon up against his head, remove that watch. This, in turn, sparks images of a tanned hand (with hairy knuckles… usually a bit too ogre for my taste, but since it’s Didz, my cock is more than willing to make an exception) wrapped tight round my cock, the Rolex sliding up and down heavy skin, metal links clicking like a metronome, completely out of time with the heart thudding in my ears.

Didz is looking at me funny. Could be a side-affect of me regarding him with my head tilted to one side and mouth hanging open and thinking about Rolexes whilst all the saliva in my mouth slinks slowly from one side of my mouth to the other. Could also be the fact that I am sitting with my legs so far apart I am just shy of doing the splits, in a vain attempt to relieve some of the pressure below my waist that is building up to dangerous, needle-on-gauge-firmly-in-red proportions. Could be I have entranced him with my singing skills and good charms and whatnot.

Could be, but Didz looks perfectly composed. The word Orwellian springs to mind, but I dunno why. It’s not right at all. Sounds good though. I wonder if Didz knows what it means. He strikes me as being dim. Mind you, I think everyone’s dim. Whereas I am god at times. Not God – I don’t think I could handle the pressure of being omnipotent – but a god. I’m perfectly benevolent and willing to share power as long as I can do whatever I damn well choose.

 

I’m glad, at this point, that Didz prefers silence to stilted conversation, because if I open my mouth then some of my thoughts’ll spill out and I can imagine that would be followed by Didz brandishing a crucifix and trying to banish the crazy person who he’s sharing a cab with. And if Didz speaks, then I’ll imagine that permanently hanging open, perfectly designed to tease, mouth pouting round my cock and that just might, in my current state of dire need, push me over the edge.

Who I am trying to convince? The thought of mouldy mushy peas is about enough to send me careering into an orgasm of pure delicious satisfaction right now.

Oh Lord. We’re here. I’ll let Didz pay for the taxi. My funds are dented from lunch and the exchange with Gary. I think Julian might be stealing from me.

Didz leads the way up the stairs. I do my best not to stumble up after him. I hate following people upstairs. It’s stressful. Can’t go too fast, otherwise you’re too eager. Can’t go too slow or they’ll turn round when they get to the top and watch you walk up and then that’s just asking for you to fall over, crack your knee on the concrete and bust your lip open on a banister and leave you a whimpering bloody mess that no one in their right mind would want to shag.

Oh Lord. Deep breaths, deep breaths. Yoga breaths. Calms you down if you do it from your diaphragm, or something. Can’t remember the exact tip gleaned from my sister’s ‘Mr Motivator Goes Yoga’ video (too much yellow spandex involved… I mean, how can you do anything apart from stare at the man’s crotch?) but the general gist was that deep breaths are good. Oh lord. Lord. Lord.

I walk through the blue front door. So far so good.

Didz slams me into the wall with one hand and kicks the door shut at the same time and somehow finds time in the middle of all that simultaneous action to grind his hips up against me and leave me spluttering like an idiot. An idiot that wants to tear all his clothing off with my teeth. Now.

Didz smirks mercurially. Not that that’s the right word either but adjective accuracy is not high on my priority list right now. Getting Didz’s waistcoat off is.

My fingers scrabble at it. For God’s sake come the fuck undone you bastard buttons… It’s like fate is toying with me for its own amusement. Like it went down the pub, rubbed its hands together and sat down and went, ‘right, lads, got a good’un here. Pete Doherty – desperate for a shag, and I mean, really desperate for a shag – and we’ll let him find a nice sleazy bloke that ticks all the right boxes… and then we’ll make it as hard as possible for him to actually get any…’ then all the little bastards laughed long and hard at my misfortune.

 

Hallelujah. One button down. Only… fourteen more to go? Sod that for a game of soldiers. My fingers slide down to his fly. I can live without nudity. Just. Need. Sex.

Didz slaps my fingers away and gets a disgruntled furrow over his eyebrows and starts to work on his own clothing. I let myself flop back onto the wall completely and just enjoy the show, play voyeur for a bit. Except I can’t really flop back because every muscle in my body is so tense, all like coiled springs about ready to snap before the tension kills me. In fact, I’d probably explode, so Didz would go too.

Please God. Not before the shagging. After – certainly. Parents may shed tears but I will die semi-satisfied. Not entirely satisfied, because I never got to win a ballroom dancing competition and I haven’t won a Nobel Prize for Something, yet. But satisfied enough not to haunt anyone.

Didz’s shirt floats to the floor, leading my eyes astray. I look back up. Didz’s chest. Man chest. Something so damned appetising about it. I swear, he could bundle me up under his arm and carry me off like a Danish milkmaid without so much as one muscle flinching. Big man chest. Broad shoulders and lean skin. I just stand there and watch him start on his trousers, hair flicking out and lip bitten in concentration. I drool. Little bit. Wipe it with back of my hand. Hope Didz doesn’t notice.

He looks back up at my face. Wearing only his boxers. Didz has chest hair. Big hairy man chest chest hair snaking from his collarbone and trailing a path of temptation right down to the straining fabric of his boxers. Like a giant arrow begging my eyes to follow it. So I do. Didz smirks, looking pleased with himself. Part of me wants to make a witty retort right now, but then I get distracted as he folds his arms. More muscle pressing hard against supple skin. I want to bite his arm, on the curve of his shoulder. It’s begging me to. Practically down on its knees, wrists bound, begging me to. I feel like a gawping fool. He seems to think I’m nervous. Just suffering from the dreaded it’s-been-too-long syndrome.

He murmurs in my ear, fingers tracing down the fabric of my arm like they have the power to unravel all my clothing. (Actually, that’s a damn better power than laser vision. Spontaneous nakedness wins every time. Over everything. Ever.) I fight off unconsciousness.

“How old are you?” That voice is treacle dripping down my back, every hair standing on end. I want him to lick it off. Slowly. Tease my skin until it cries out for more. Where it comes from I will never know. It’s like Rick Astley with his Barry White voice.

Rick Astley? Fate and my brain are in cahoots to ruin my first decent opportunity for a shag in the last… fucking… era.

Sadly it is a sign of just how long it has been, the fact that images of a ginger eighties’ singing sensation cannot even begin to quieten down my cock which is now practically straining on its leash.

“Nineteen.” Didz smiles like a predator about to pounce. His fingers unbutton my fucking shirt at last. I hope he won’t notice I’m lying. Blatantly. He looks about thirty. I’m twenty seven. Thank God for Bambi eyes at times like this. I feel like I’m nineteen, if that’s any consolation. Fuck, I feel like I’m fourteen. As long as he doesn’t speak again, I’ll be fine. Every time he speaks, I feel like someone has taken a vice to my nether regions and the last thing they need at this moment in time, is any more pressure of any variety.

His hands aren’t touching me; now he’s practically fucking nude he acts like he has all the time in the world. Which we do. Except I need to fuck. NOW.

I rip the buttons off my shirt as I pull it off over my head. This either comes off as an incredibly suave and time-efficient manoeuvre, or smacks of desperation. I choose to ignore the latter possibility and focus on something more important: I might steal something from Didz’s place to sell to Julian to buy a new one. A nicer one. One that wasn’t a school shirt I nicked from a washing line. Didz looks vaguely impressed with my sudden enthusiasm. He pulls my trousers off and I almost weep with relief. He still hasn’t touched me though. His eyes brush over my (comparatively) bald chest and I don’t like the half pity/half desire look in there one bit. Just because I’m a few steps further along the evolutionary scale than hairy (manly, me Tarzan you Jane, please-stop-stalling-and-rip-my-boxers-off-with-your-teeth) Didz, doesn’t mean I need pity.

“What d’you want?” I cave in to temptation and bite his shoulder. God, even his skin tastes like promises. He laughs. It echoes through my chest. “How d’you wanna do this?” That voice is smoke, twirling through the air. It is adrenalin running through my veins. It is a serpent’s tongue lapping at my ear. It’s a fucking hand round my cock. I bite harder into his shoulder to distract myself.

“What d’you mean?”

He laughs again.

“I mean,”

Fingers brush my hipbones, knuckles all awkward angles, flirting with the waistband on my boxers, eyes down and peering down the straight line of my chest (avoiding the slight proliferation of skin – just skin, not fat, never fat – that has deposited itself around my stomach) and down the gap between boxer and skin that his fingers keep creating like a kid peaking at a present at Christmas.

“D’you want me to fuck you?”

I almost burst out laughing.

Can’t really blame him for thinking I’m some innocent. I can act it and I look it at times. But really, c’mon. Do I look like a virgin? Unless it was the dry spell. Is it possible to be revirginified? I made a fucking good attempt at it before today.

I want to point out that the combined effects of panic and Rick Astley and visions of Meatloaf wearing only a bikini and humming the EastEnders theme tune and Stan’s smugbastardgloating glare couldn’t even begin to be enough to scare off the thirst for skin on skin, lips on lips, hair tangling beneath my fingers and teeth biting and hipbones, hipbones, hipbones, hipbones, hipbones, I have right now.

Instead I nod enthusiastically. So hard, my neck nearly snaps.

Still, conveys the message clear enough because both pairs of boxers suddenly do a disappearing act. And a hand wraps instantly round my cock and another pins my shoulder in place on the wall and leaves me incapable of doing anything apart from gasping a lot and thrusting frantically, desperately, and you-better-believe, fucking gratefully into the grasp of tight, calloused fingers that have just found the exact spot that actually turns my knees into water. Jelly too viscous. Water. Yes. Didz. Fuck yes.

“Didz! Jesus! Christ! Fghnnnuhh…”

And with that, I’m coming.

Didz’s hand keeps me in place and he smiles as I go through the seven rounds of satisfied shudders that wrack my skin with aftershocks of pleasure. It’s almost worth taking an inadvertent vow of celibacy, just to make you really appreciate the beauty and splendour and magnificence of an orgasm brought on by something other than your own right hand.

I blink and everything slams back into focus. Didz is frowning down at his hand with an expression sandwiched somewhere between amused and disgusted. I’m confused for a second, but then the fact that Didz is straight gets flung into the pot of gumph that is constantly brewing in my mind. I suppose if you’re straight, then having a hand covered in someone else’s… you know… is the equivalent of being sneezed on or something.

In fact, it must be, because Didz stalks off into the kitchen (nice kitchen he’s got himself actually) in search of some form of towel-like object. And now I feel bad. Satisfied, make no mistake, but bad. Walking with a hard-on isn’t easy.

My eyes spy something beginning with ‘L,S’ by the door. I take the opportunity of Didz’s turned back (big, bare, bear back that should’ve carried me up the stairs, I just want to grind my hips against it) to sneak over and investigate.

Intriguing.

Didz catches me halfway through my tiptoeing/peering and smiles at me with wry amusement. Like someone watching a chimp on a bike. “What you doing now?”

“Didz…”

“Yeah?”

“Are those really that size?”

Didz nods. Then the sleaziest grin I’ve ever seen in my damn life is on his face. He knows what’s coming. My cock twitches slightly. Then Didz puts his hands on his hips and although it is typically a stance adopted by me Mam when irate, my mind cuts and pastes me into the triangle of space between arm and chest and inserts audio of him growling at me and it comes screaming back into full life. A fact Didz notices. And the grin gets sleazier.

This cycle could go on for all eternity. Better than the damned rock cycle I had to learn for GCSE chemistry that still hides in the darkened corners of my brain and that my mental feather duster can never quite reach to sweep away.

Leaning on the wall for support, I start the difficult task of cramming my feet into shoes one size too small. Barbie pink shoes that would not be out of place on LA Law. They must be Didz’s girlfriend’s (Didz too manly to have high heels. Didz man. Doherty girly. Hear Didz roar. Watch Didz beat chest. Didz no loincloth wear. No. Naked Didz. Oh, shite alive, I’m drooling again.) but she must be a [wo]man-mountain, if she has size nine feet. I always thought girls were dainty and could snap easily. Men, you can throw around. And be thrown around by. Yes, yes, oh yay.

It’s a guilty thrill, borrowing someone else’s stuff. Used to – well, I still do – do it all the time. There’s the blatant, base thrill of maybe getting caught. But, there’s something deeper than that, whispering sins along your veins. Something that keeps you off the ground slightly (not just literally, in these rather dashing four inch heels) but away from reality. Because if it doesn’t belong to you, then it can’t hurt you. Nothing can hurt you if it doesn’t belong to you and you don’t belong to anything either. It just can’t.

Ha, they’re not that high actually and my little toe might have just disconnected from the rest of my foot and the little piggy that had roast beef is about to have a Hulk-moment of bursting out of confines of clothing, but I will be a trooper and move through the pain. Mainly because my posing like a weathergirl is making Didz’s eyes positively glow with the heat of all the fucking filthy thoughts I can see playing across his face and he’s striding over to me.

He grabs my wrist hard and looks me up and down. Now, one could feel slightly ridiculous right at this second, because you are a bloke, stood in a straight bloke’s flat, who thinks you’re nineteen, wearing his girlfriend’s shoes. Which really are very, very pink. And your knobbly knees are on show and pasty legs and –

Didz’s arm jerks; sends me stumbling into the tiled kitchen bit, stupid girly shoes sliding on the tiles. Didz follows. Pins me up against worktop. I must be six foot six in the damn heels, but he’s towering over me easily. I tangle my finger into a rogue bit of hair that’s decided to curl by his ear. Coyly.

His hand slaps mine away again before Didz slams his hips against mine and kisses any protests (as if I have any) into submission. Glorious submission. Stubble burn will leave my baby smooth skin all raw tomorrow, but at the moment, it’s a fucking brilliant contrast to the soft, slick skin my arms wrap round as they link behind his back, and the commanding tongue that’s backing mine into a corner, dragging moans of approval and permission out my mouth and chaining them into his.

Didz shoves at me. I take the hint. Slide onto the worktop. A bit acrobatic and will no doubt leave me with very sore thighs tomorrow, thanks to the effort of levering myself up and down with legs knotted round his back, but more than worth it at the same time. Only – just as I get myself settled and into a leg-wrapping position, Didz’s hand – which seems to have some sort of obsession with curving round my shoulder and shoving me – forces me further back, until I have no choice but to practically lie down on the cold, cold black marble worktop that must’ve cost him a minor mint.

Oh, now I get it. Sore spine for me tomorrow. I raise my legs. Didz climbs over me. He’s like some sepia photograph come to life. With a painted, ragged, red mouth panting and growling in the middle of it. He takes one last glance, dragging his eyes up the length of my legs, from shoe to sharp hipbone, before resting all his weight on a combination of other limbs and working two fingers inside me.

Fuck me. If he’s never done this before, then I'm the Queen Mother. Because the burn of flesh sends my spine into arcs of promised ecstasy and his fingers scrape against the exact spot that slams my eyes shut and leaves me wriggling and gagging for that sleight of hand again. I can feel Didz’s dirty smirk pouring through my eyelids.

Fingers leave. The hand returns to its rightful place on my shoulder. There’s the familiar rustle of a condom and the spit of paper, as its torn open with teeth. Didz takes one long, shuddering breath and lets it hiss out through his teeth as he thrusts in. I see stars. He starts to move, rolling his hips and slamming into me like a human wrecking ball, laying waste to all the skin and bones and fucking unnecessary life-preserving organs in between, and leaving me with nothing but Didz ramming into me and the taut stomach my cock is being ground against.

“You, fucking, little, tart…”

“Fuck, harder, Didz, harder…”

The exchange isn’t really something off The Waltons.

Didz comes with a growl of ‘fucking, tart…’ that makes his stomach tense and head fly back and my cock doesn’t so much explode, as I feared, but more disintegrate in relief and gratitude. Which sounds like a bit of a disappointment, but, believe me, is not to be mocked. Or turned down.

***

Lying in bed next to Didz is a health risk. I mean, if he did carry a government warning, like fags, then I’d still probably still be here. Because, after he wiped the sweat off his forehead, and let me lick it from his lips and climbed off me, he flicked his head in the direction of a door lurking down a corridor and said: “C’mon.” It doesn’t seem that good when its written down, but if the world could climb inside my head and hear the soundtrack on repeat, well, it’d either make you get a hard-on, or wish you had a cock so you could have one. To be blunt.

However, he hurls his arms around like a whirling dervish and I can feel how my back is littered with purple bruises that each toll his name. And I got an elbow in the eye a while back and a surprisingly sharp claw of a finger all the way down my arm. He has also kicked me a running total of nine times. If I knew he was going to be such a wife-beater, then I’d have possibly… well, no, I’d still be lying here, trying to fold myself into the smallest bed space possible. But if I wasn’t so high that someone finally fucked me, then I’d key his car. Make no mistake.

Didz doesn’t half sleep for a long time. I nap in hour chunks, mainly. I wish we’d stopped off at the pet shop in the dodgy bit of town that probably sells wombats, as well as your standard three quid kittens, because right now I’d be training Didz Junior to be an attack kitten and launch itself bodily at his unsuspecting nose. Because, it would be loyal to me. Bout time something was, really. Subservience isn’t half lonely at times.

He’s been unconscious for the last three hundred and thirty two days. I got up about an hour ago to try and find some entertainment, but its freezing in this flat and I don’t have any inclination to put my clothes on, since someone finally went to the effort of kindly removing them all. I scrambled around under the mattress for some coke or weed or something to entertain myself with whilst he continued with his coma, but there wasn't any. I did find about two hundred quid in a wad of cash. Which I stole. Maybe he sells children into slavery in his spare time. Or stray dogs.

Two hundred quid. I could buy Street Boy six point six recurring times. I didn’t get an A in GCSE maths for nothing. But six wouldn’t be enough. Six would leave me gagging for seven. And I couldn’t afford it. Fuck. Abstinence was never my forte. Didz is good. In that sleazy, older man way that I like. In that fucking me so hard I’m about to fly through the floor way that’s always fucking good. I bet he’d spank me if I asked.

But he isn’t Street Boy. Street Boy with black hair and grimy skin who’d suck me off in the alleyway because I told him to. He’d probably hold a knife to my throat, too. Maybe smack me around. I’d treat him like a princess and he’d hate it. I’m nothing if not a glutton for punishment. He’d let me chain him up and bite on his shoulder, till it bled my name. For a price. Devil-black hair and rouge lips. Tawny skin. Arse that was sheer… fuck knows. Just glorious. I bet he could crush me with his thighs. What a way to go.

Didz wakes up, voice all raspy with sleep and cigarettes: “Are you wanking in bed next to me?”

There’s not much room for denial, really. I nod sheepishly. He cracks a lecherous grin and shakes off the sleepy irritation and wraps his hand round mine. Alright, then….

***

Didz kicked me out on Sunday night. Quite where the time went in-between, I’ll never know. I think there was some electronic tagging device that prevented him from moving from his bed. Which is not something I’m going to complain about. Although, since he seems to believe I’m nineteen – what bright spark gave him that impression? – he also seems to think I have the stamina of a nineteen year old. On speed. And Viagra. Which means that I can get away with minimal effort on my part (nineteen year olds are not expected to be good in bed) but also, I swear to Almighty Jehovah, that my cock is thinking it is being punished for something, what with being overworked and severely underpaid. I am concerned about the possibility of it going on strike. It can’t. It’d be cruel. Not when Didz never wants to leave bed. He even had the pizza boy come in to the apartment and leave the pizza in the kitchen and fish some money out of his wallet, in his trouser pocket on the floor where we left them. It was nice of him to be so trusting. He made me go fetch the food. I quite liked being ordered about.

The highlight of the weekend was definitely the phone call from his Didz-mother. Mainly because I had his cock in my mouth at the time. His hands in my hair tried to pull me up but, no, it was far too much fun to see his face flick between I-am-going-to-murder-you and marry-me.

Plus, as a reward I got doused in beer. Then he licked it off. Something I can undoubtedly appreciate, even if it did leave me rather sticky afterwards. And Didz wouldn’t let me have a shower.

“You’re a dirty little tart.” He bit my ear. “Stay in bed.”

“I need a shower; I’m sticking to the sheets.”

In retrospect, I should’ve known pointing that out to Didz was a bad idea. He kicked off the bedcovers and let me shiver through the night, whilst he snored like a beloved but decrepit old motor car. I shoved bits of Kleenex up his nose and scavenged for leftovers in the fridge. Briefly contemplated making an omelette, then realised that eggs in that context do not agree with me. Too rubbery. Unnerving. Like bananas. The spineless bastard of the fruit world.

On Sunday morning he finally got out of bed and rudely woke me up, (I fell asleep hugging the fridge. No idea why. Cold love isn’t much fun…) by trailing his tongue down my back, then fucking me up against the innocent eggshell blue of the blessed Smeg refrigerator like a 1950s housewife.

“You… better… fucking… not… be… making… my… Smeg… fucking… sticky… beery… dirty… little… tart…”

I swung at him with a table mat. Missed. Aim somewhat hindered by cock ramming into me. Bastard.

On Sunday night I got told:

“You need to fuck off. My girlfriend’s coming back tonight.”

I didn’t pretend to be hurt, but I like the effect my pouting has on people. It inspires them to give me things.

“Aww, don’t look like that.” He fumbled around in the sideboard. “Here, borrow my car. Just make sure I get it back at work, yeah?” I was halfway out the door before he asked if I could drive. I smiled coyly.

Gary liked Didz’s car.

I liked the way the brakes screamed for mercy.

I loved the free pills I got for letting him drive it for the night.

Didz won’t like the mysterious stains on the backseat and the thong in the glove compartment. It’s red and lacy. I might tell him it’s mine. He’ll appreciate that. We can have sex in the toilets at work, with hands over each others’ mouths so we don’t scream out any names.

Or maybe we could scream out names. The toilet windows overlook the same alley as my office. Okay, so you do have to stand on the edge of the sink to actually be able to see out of them, but Street Boy is very visible from the toilets. He is equally as desirable from the toilets. I spent so much time in there last month, my boss informed me that if I suffered from bowel problems I should have citied it on my application form or got a doctor’s note prior to my employment. There can’t be a better way of getting Street Boy to notice me than have someone screaming my name from a toilet cubicle in that harsh, desperate, ravenous tone I get from Didz.

Not that he’s said my name yet. It’s usually variations on ‘you dirty little tart.’

Hmm.

I think about this on Monday morning. Not too hard, because my brain hurts from the flickering of everything around me and the incessant hum of the photocopier. It mocks me. The hum sounds like it’s sighing someone’s name. Everyone around me's breathing sounds like they are sighing someone’s name. I sound like my own heartbeat is screaming someone’s name. Didz will be sat in his office, in his ivory tower far above us drones, not saying anything.

I’m gonna call him a tart. See how he likes it.

Speaking of tarts, there is no sign of Street Boy yet.

What there is sign of, however, is Anthony. Doing the monthly meeting with the bosses. Leering at Julian’s arse as he bows and scrapes to his every whim. Or serves coffee. Whatever the kids call it nowadays. I can tell that as the meeting wears on – well into hour number two by now – he’s imagining throwing Julian across the table and having his wicked way with him on that sea of mahogany varnished up a treat. Julian looks oblivious to Stan’s attention. For this, I love him. He looks sleepy and dopey and possibly happy, bashful and grumpy thrown in to boot, but I see no sign of Doc or Sneezy. This is a crying shame.

A shadow appears at my side. I look up. Oh. Borrell. That snivelling little weed. I loathe him. I loathe the ground he walks on and the stagnant air he breathes.

“Doherty, er, you, er, don’t, er, happen, to, er, have, er, that disc with the, er, month end figures on.” It’s not a question. He knows I don’t have it. I don’t even know what he’s talking about. I type in numbers. From sheets of paper. And add them up. Process the files. Print off letters to customers. Contemplate suicide and shagging in equal measures, the yin-yang of my life. I do not touch discs. Ever. I don’t like the power they hold. I think it’s a side-effect of being tall. Small things unnerve me because they can often outwit me. Kick out at my ankles and overpower me, just when I get the dizzy thrill of control spiralling through me, lulling me into a false sense of security. Discs are to be feared.

“No.”

“Oh, er, well, er, no, er, bother, er, then.” He talks like it’s a labour to get the words out that flapping great donkey trap of his. It isn’t. Once he gets talking he won’t shut up. The world is put to rights by one Mr. Johnny Borrell. He’s crap. He’s crap as Didz is lecherous. Borrell thinks he’s Oscar Wilde and Morrissey and Dylan and Martin Luther King Jr. rolled into one and that he’s saving the planet one day at a time by working as a computer systems analyst for a building society. Ergo he is crap.

I turn back to my typing.

He sits on my desk and traps the end of my keyboard. It starts making those small beeps. I dream it is an anti-Borrell bomb sent to remove him off this earth.

“So, er, Pete, er, how’s, er, life then?”

No such luck.

Reasons for hating someone are a good thing. Irrational hatred is all well and good and something that I indulge in and relish every sticky, velvety, sweet moment of. However, Borrell hatred is not irrational. It is so rational, that is beyond the realms of doubt. Even if his mere existence wasn’t enough, he thinks we slept together once, a while ago, after the staff Christmas party when we all ended up back at Julian’s. I did not, under any circumstances, even go near him. I woke up with him on top of me, naked, and a drool spot that made my right nipple look like a small fish in a very big pond. Passing out and drooling on someone might constitute a night of hot action for the Borrell, but that’s the kind of love you get from a Labrador. Something I can live without.

I make a noise that could be interpreted as anything in response to his question.

 

My keyboard is practically screaming at him.

Does he back away? No.

Does he blather on over the noise about fuck knows what? Yes.

I contemplate the ethics of commandeering Didz’s car and selling it to Gary. He’d pay a pretty penny for it. I could buy Street Boy for life with it. That would make me happy. Gary would have the car and he’d be happy. Street Boy would be sucking my cock. Which would obviously make him happy. So the only loser is Didz. Maybe I could spare a fiver and buy him Didz Junior. That would placate him enough I think.

I wonder who Didz’s girlfriend is. Maybe she’s prettier than me and he won’t want me anymore. It has been known to happen.

I chance a Borrell-check. Half glance up. Nope, still talking.

Deciding to play the Good Samaritan and put Borrell out of my misery, I press the speed dial on my mobile whilst he isn’t looking. Sneaky. My desk phone rings.

“Sorry, best get that.”

He takes the hint and I consider doing a victory lap round the office, slapping Stan en route for good measure. And giving Julian’s arse a good feel. It looks so damn appetising. I think my encounter with Didz has unleashed the beast within. I was always pretty damn horny before; now it’s like the floodgates are open and everything and anything that stands still long enough, should run for dry land.

I can feel the two hundred quid burning in my pocket.

I should buy Street Boy.

I can buy Street Boy.

I’m going to buy Street Boy.

Maybe. I chance a glance out the window, knowing already that he won’t be there yet. Trying to figure out if this is the best possible time or worst possible time to make my decision. Best – Street Boy’s arse is no where in sight and, therefore, coherent thought is more likely. Worst – I haven’t seen him all weekend and now the need to see him and the anticipation is at a record high, despite the Didz-sized distraction.

It’s ten forty two on a Monday morning. Therefore far too early to be deciding such life-changing things as this. I have a break in three minutes. In this break I’ll ask Julian about his weekend, have a fag or three and maybe contemplate getting a snack before lunch to enjoy back at my desk. The snack decision is safe ground on which to linger. I fancy something exotic. Maybe a fruit salad. Watermelon’s always tasty.

My life is really, really, not how I wanted it to be. I might start drinking during the day. Except it’d cost too much and I’d never be able to keep my job. I’m lousy when I’m drunk; all I want to do is sing and fuck. And as I’m not a cabaret singer, those traits aren’t really desirable. Bet I’d look stunning in a floor-length, slit-to-the-thigh, red sequinned cocktail dress though. Could buy one actually, earn a bit of extra cash at the weekend. And lipstick, red, whoreish. Leave traces on the collar. Red shoes could be a bit too much, move the whole thing from cabaret chic into tawdry. I am a lady after all. Black? I frown at myself, marvelling how women somehow manage to get these things right. I can coordinate black suit, white shirt, shoes. That’s about it. Maybe I could ask Didz’s girlfriend before he dumps me. Leaves me alone with nothing and no one but a dream of something I never quite had.

I get a sudden flash of inspiration. It’s blinding.

Gold. If they were a classy cut shoe and not too fancy, it’d work perfectly. Offset the red like a nice Noel Christmas tree. Silver would wash my skin right out.

Julian appears at my side like a glowing apparition. “You coming or gonna continue frowning at the screen like you’re busy?”

I blink at the clock: three minutes passed already? My, time does fly when you’re having fun.


	2. Chapter 2

Julian tosses his tab end out the window. Strictly speaking the building is no-smoking, but since there are no smoke alarms in the stationery cupboard, we’re safe. Surrounded by dry paper that would act like kindling if we weren’t careful, but safe. We’ve been hiding in there ever since we both started work here. No one’s found us yet. We are pioneers, explorers. We have our stacks of copier paper and boxes of paperclips, we have our dusty window, and, my, we are proud.

I think I’m having one of my delusions of grandeur days.

Julian steals my cigarette.

“So, Didz is good then?”

Jules always wants all the gory details of my sex life. He never tells me any of his – thank the good Lord – but his eyes get this hazel glow in them that makes me think he’s picturing it in his head. And the idea of Jules screening his own private film of me in his head makes the cockles of my heart glow like embers. And translates at some point into a raging hard-on. Usually I have to fabricate the details. Usually I make up some girl who I meet at a bar. Lying makes me uncomfortable. Surprisingly.

Now, I feel a strange guilty pride. And feel like getting Didz’s name tattooed across my knuckles. Or in a heart on my arm.

“I mean, he looks like he could go either way, be good in that, you know, authoritative older man way or just plain lazy.”

My mind flashes through the still frames of the weekend. It loiters with intent on the memory of Didz bending me over the wooden pole at the foot of the bed, my hands braced on the carpet, my stomach feeling like it was being hit with a cricket bat every time he thrust in, the pole pressing further and further in until I saw black spots. My head hanging upside down and all the blood draining from it. I had carpet burns on my palms, like my own brand of stigmata.

“Very fucking good in the older man way. He bosses me around.”

Julian grins wickedly, “Stan tried that one once. All that I earn more than you, so obey, crap.”

He cackles and double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble springs to mind.

“I tied him to his leather swivel chair by my tie. Naked. The cleaner had to set him free. Fortunately she didn’t find him till Saturday afternoon.” He cackles again. I make a mental note not to ever get ideas about ordering Julian around.

“How did Stan take that?”

Julian’s laugh is practically hysterical. “He docked my wages. Damages.”

I frown. He seems remarkably unperturbed by it for a money-grabbing fiend. “I actually ended up with a raise.”

More laughter. “We worked out a more favourable contract.”

I pause for thought. “Jules, do I actually want to know the terms of that contract?”

He grins pure filth at me and shakes his head.

“So where does Didz fit into the saga of you and Street Boy?”

“I stole two hundred quid from Didz.”

“Yeah?” Julian’s lack of reaction to this revelation speaks volumes about his character. In future I am not getting my wallet out in his presence.

“So… I might… get him.”

Julian laughs some more.

“Bout fucking time!” He tosses his cigarette out the window and makes to leave.

“Jules…”

“Yeah?”

“You won’t tell anyone bout me and Didz, and, er, men, will you?”

He ruffles my hair. Or would if he weren't laughing too hard to have motor functions. “Everyone already knows.”

Oh. Great.

Sitting back at my desk and already I’m itching for another cigarette. Two hours till lunch though.

Got it, I’ll entertain myself with my snack.

Miniature plastic forks always crack Julian up. They fail to thrill me. I use my fingers. I imagine each piece of fruit between Street Boy’s parted lips. Begging and waiting for me. Him, stretched out, like some Roman mural, tawny limbs all laid out, elegance and lethargy, black hair tumbling out his eyes, eyes shrouded on heavy lids, breath fluttering in anticipation behind his lips like a caged animal, waiting to pounce. Me bending down, mouths meeting, my hands pressing into clean white bed sheets of silk, as I lower myself down over him, the air in my lungs leaden with his scent, teasing that bit of watermelon out his lips, juice trailing down his neck like a lace invitation, lips still parted and expectant, pliant and willing…

…then he flips me over and gives me a kick in the ribs, nicks my money and my fruit salad and leaves me naked as a jaybird in the middle of the street. He’d probably pick through it too, toss out the grapes. Just to rub salt in the wound.

I wish all my Street Boy fantasies wouldn’t end the same damn way.

My skin itches with need, tingling up my spine. Same feeling I used to get when I was a kid, waiting for Santa. Or the Easter Bunny. Or The Clangers. I went through a phase where I was convinced I was a Clanger and I’d only communicate in whistles. Only I can’t whistle, so I just hissed through my teeth. Everyone thought I had some obscure breathing defect and me Mam took me to the doctor and neither of them looked impressed when I simply pointed out that I was clearly trying to return to my home planet. They crushed my dreams that day. A little shred of innocence shrivelled up and faded away.

I glance. He’s there. My heart leaps uselessly into my throat, trousers become unbearably tight and breathing is a distant memory. Its one hour forty six minutes till lunch.

God, he’s beautiful.

I’m on my feet and knocking on my boss’s door before my fuddled brain can even summon up a protest.

“Doherty?”

“Got a dentist appointment at the hospital, Sir.” He nods like so-what? I dunno where this sudden ability to lie brilliantly has appeared from. If I’d had it in school, then I could’ve become a spy. Or shagged more of my teachers. “Need to go now. Haven’t booked a half day though. Should I cancel it?”

I flutter my eyelashes. I think cabaret girl lives on strong within me. He looks reluctant.

“I’ll do overtime tomorrow night to compensate.” Fuck, my stupid fucking mouth.

Of course, that gets him nodding in agreement. I leave.

My knees are buzzing so hard with anticipation, they don’t function any more as I stagger down the stairs. I'm a hummingbird. I fly down the last flight and round the corner, feet not touching the dirty floor beneath. My eyes are sensitive to everything in ridiculous ways. I can see his footsteps on the tarmac, the heat emanating from every place he’s tread. I can see his breath, violent, streaking through the air. I can see his smell of malice and lust spiralling around me in a web, scarlet spindles drawing me closer. I don’t even know if I’m moving any more. My stomach is flipping over and over and over. I might faint.

He’s there.

I stand frozen. I'm playing musical statues. I’m gonna win. My mouth is hanging open and my eyes are stretched impossibly wide, but I’m still gonna win. My skin tingles. I'm in a block of ice, I’m imprisoned, I couldn’t move, even if I wanted to.

No, no, it’s hot, burning scorching blistering hot heat. I'm in metal, some transparent molten metal.

I want to drop to my knees and worship him.

His skin is liquid, shifting like mercury, only gold. Not a flaw on it. No marks of ownership or anything binding him to this world. Can’t understand what’s keeping him here, when he so clearly deserves to be above it. Those lips are ravaged, the thing of nightmares and dreams. The hair is grimy and unkempt, but something noble-blooded lurks beneath. Something noble-blooded that makes me want to fist my fingers into it and drag those lips, too red with promise to be real, into any contact I can get. I’m not fussy. Not really. But it’s his eyes that snare me.

They’re furious.

They hate me.

Pure loathing’s tone is purple, lust’s tone is the most tainted shade of blue, darkness lapping at its edges. Although, there’s every possibility it’s not even there at all, wishful fucking thinking on my part. Envy’s tone – I smile at the truth of the saying – is jaded and green, fear’s tone is raw, maleficent black. Behind all that, in the basest, blandest tones that could be idly dismissed as cold blue, that’s where the loneliness loiters, head hung in shame. Base blue because it’s just that, plain and simple – lost at sea…

“’Fuck you looking at?”

The voice is a mumbled snarl that makes no sense. The words don’t pass through the air. They sear into my brain in white, hot light.

I can’t answer.

He glares at me. The ice melts. The metal cowers away. I want him to brand me with anything, anywhere. Make me his.

“How much?”

The mouth splits in two at my words, uneven teeth being displayed. It’s perfect. He looks deadly. Even under daylight he’s a creature of night. His dark jacket, dark hair, dark jeans, dark soul would all merge into the night quickly, like he’s part of it, sent out to tempt mortals, lead them astray, make them want to be drowned in the darkness of the pitch night too, only to be stolen away, leaving them cold and alone, too stunned to cry or punch a window, or scream, or even move.

“How much for how long?”

I shrug. All eternity seems a little forward.

“How old are you?”

I don’t see why he cares how old I am. He goes off with everyone. I know. I see. I watch the zoetrope of patrons with jealous tears in my eyes and bitter arousal in my soul.

“Twenty seven.”

He laughs. I don’t know whether to be flattered or offended by his disbelief.

“Fuck off. I’m too young for you.”

I frown at him: he looks early twenties.

Another malicious grin splits his face. “I'm seventeen.”

I feel dirty all over. I want the person I saw through the glass. The one in control. Black hair and violence. The one who would fight me tooth and nail. Not some… kid. I feel dirty all over. He knows it. He laughs again. “Still want me?”

I don’t even know how to think about answering that question.

***

I feel lousy.

I have vodka which helps.

I have the pills Gary gave me. And some Julian gave me. Which I swallow without question. Actually, I should put that in a personal ad. I’d have those lonely hearts queuing round the corner. I’d romance them all and let them try and keep my affections with pearls and fur stoles.

Honestly, there’s some wiring or chemical in my brain that turns me into Marilyn Monroe when I drink. Drink anything alcoholic in any quantity. I have three beers and I’m condemning myself to hugging my toilet for a good half hour the morning after the night before. But it’s always worth it, though. Because when I am Marilyn Monroe I am untouchable. I radiate some frail charm in amongst my vulnerable glamour, that essence of a star that makes them above everyone else, but suspended by such a frail thread, and everyone just wants to gravitate around them to see if they can snatch a bit of it when they finally fall.

Apparently it also makes some girl who may or may not be a prostitute want to stick her tongue in my ear. I never read anything about this in Marilyn’s biography. Maybe this is what happens when Marilyn couples up with the Doherty charm. We become invincible. Like Power Rangers morphing into that all-conquering beast. Only instead of dinosaur robots we have delicious pouts and a penchant for curling powerful men around our little fingers. Like JFK… and Didz. Who is arguably less powerful. But there’s no way I’m shagging Tony Blair. I’m just not. Please don’t make me.

I take a deep breath. Alcohol also makes me more melodramatic than usual.

It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.

That’s my –highly inventive – mantra. I used to clamp my hands over my ears and fold my knees up to my chin and sing it in my head to the tune of Feed The Birds Tuppence A Bag, and then I’d imagine that I was the little old lady sat on the stairs of St. Paul’s only I had no Mary Poppins to come save me with the Almighty Tuppence and that’d make me cry and then usually someone would appear and save me from myself. I learnt to do it without the hand-clamping though. Doesn’t do for public situations.

It’s okay.

I’m slumping happily on Julian’s sofa. With a girl’s tongue in my ear and vodka coiled tightly in my fist and people’s faces all around me swimming with love. And joy.

Which helps.

Slightly.

Except I keep replaying the encounter in my head.

Street Boy: “I’m seventeen.”

Me: (Stunned, gormless silence of a highly pathetic nature.)

Street Boy: “Still want me?”

Me: “Gnnnghhh.”

I should be shot.

Street Boy should be gagged. So he can’t say things, say anything at all.

It’s all my own fault. I should have stuck to the rules. Only observed him from behind glass. Always was the kid that had to lean over the fence and feed the animals.

I ran away. I could hear his bitter laughing at my back as I stalked off, pride shrivelling and dying. It sped me on. I look ridiculous when I run. Like some leggy giraffe in hot pursuit of a particularly tasty bit of leaf or something. Last time I ran – before the debacle that is today – it was chasing after a taxi that drove off with one of my shoes. Jules was there. He collapsed like a cheap deckchair. I thought he was having a stroke or something but he was just laughing so hard he couldn’t move. Just at my running. Coz of the giraffe thing. Said I have the eyelashes for it too.

Giraffelash. Sounds like some schnazzy brand of mascara. Giraffelash, wave goodbye to clumps, say hello to tasty lashes. Stop worrying about your make-up, start those luscious lashes and hearts a-fluttering…

I am just wasted, wasted, in my position as a corporate drone. I could be changing the face of cosmetics and revolutionising lives. A Ghandi for Maybelline. Wasted.

Still, wouldn’t change the fact that I should be shot.

Or that I ran home. Drank. On my own. Before midday. Called Julian when he’d finished work. Ranted at him about taxes. I don’t care about taxes. I care about Street Boy. I care about him laughing at me. I care about him thinking I’m a dirty old man. I care about the fact he cares how old I am when I can’t for the life of me fathom out why. I care about the fact he’s too young. I care about the fact I don’t care he’s too young and I still want to fuck him.

When one is in a situation like this, there is only one solution. Drink more. More often.

Julian concurred. “Yeah, come over to mine, there’s a sort of… social gathering thing going on. People from work. No cunts though. There’ll be girls…” cue laughter on his end of the line, “sorry, my mistake, I forgot I no longer have to pretend I don’t know you like men.” More laughing. I should sell tickets to the shambles that is my life.

So now I am ensconced on a sofa with a hooker. Or she looks like a hooker, anyway. She’s old and sinewy in a way that doesn’t remind me of anything erotic and instead prompts comparisons with gnarled old tree roots. She’s probably only thirty. She hands me a cigarette. I eye it warily. She looks like a tricksy old bird. I drop it accidentally and blear at her drunkenly. She tuts at me like a vicar and leaves me alone.

Ah, peace at last.

Only – my head’s tolling all kinds of bells right now.

Oh, wait, no, it’s Julian clattering around in the kitchen. It’s like some tubular bells orchestra going on in there.

His face lights up like a kid at Christmas when I enter the room. “Pete! Pete!” The clanging of two pans against each other to punctuate my name is torture. Each cell in my head vibrates at the exact same frequency as those notes and is shaking loose. My teeth are wobbling. I’m soon to be a toothless dirty old pervert. “Pete!”

“Shoppuinthat.”

“Pete! Pete! He loves the boy on the…” cue drum roll with wooden spoons on the back of a wok “…street!”

“S’please… Jules…”

“Jesus, man, you alright, you look green. You’re not gonna throw up in my kitchen are you? You better fucking not.” His concern for my welfare is touching.

Jules reminds me of a dinosaur. All plodding and sad eyes but secretly ferocious. And once you’ve befriended him he keeps you safe. Wards off evil. Scares off the people who lurk on streets below you and steal into the peripheries of your mind until they’re all you can think about and until you forget who you were before they came along. Because they make your heart flip up on that damned arc and snatch your breath away every single time you see them. Because they’re so fucking graceless, so fucking angry, so fucking petty, such a snarl on such a pretty mouth, so fucking furious that you know they just want to hurt you and you know you love playing the martyr, when it suits, and you’ll be begging for them before the day’s done. Begging for them even though you know it’ll never fucking last.

I nestle my head in his shoulder. Julian shall protect me. He shall. He smells like shampoo and coffee. Edible in every respect.

“Street Boy thinks I’m a pervert.” I do not know why I am telling him this. No part of me wants this story to be shown the light of day, but here I am with my treasonous mouth banging on again. “S’thinks I’m a dirty old pervert…”

“Why, man?” His fingers tug at the ends of my hair; I guess this passes for affection in Julian’s mind. Stirrings of pity for Stan swirl around my conscience. I bat them away. Quickly.

I bet Stan fucks like the Duracell Bunny. Fast and brutal but keeps going longer, much longer. I bet he’s a biter n’all. People made of pure evil always are.

“Cozzees fuckin’ seventeen.”

“Holy shit.”

“What?”

“That does make you kinda a dirty old pervert.”

“’Koff…” He pulls my head closer into his shoulder and shushes me, wrapping an arm round my back. Feels thrillingly safe. “Didz likes me and thinks I’m nineteen. He’s not a dirty old man.”

“Didz thinks you’re nineteen?”

I nod into his neck.

“I don’t even wanna know why, man.” I nod again, apparently feeling that this is an appropriate response to everything now. “Yeah, but there’s kind of a difference between seventeen and nineteen, you know?” I nod. I don’t. Julian’s skin smells nice. I want it.

I pull my head out from his shoulder and kiss him. Starts off slow and messy, all alcohol waste tripping me up and surprise inhibiting him. Then the arms on my back become less of an embrace, fingers start digging in, pressing me closer, tongues stop being lazy and easy and start being severe, fighting for control, legs stop being apart, come closer until one’s thrust between mine hard and one of my hands starts trailing its way down to his jeans, lust making me stumble round the button. Julian pulls back for a second, eyes drowning in thirst, lips slick and ready.

Then the confusion lifts and he snaps back to reality. “Woah, hey, c’mon, Stan’s in the other room.”

“Fuck Stan.”

Grins in a knowing way; “Yeah, that is the plan.” I pout. “Look, go call Didz. Or I can call Nikolai…” I harden my eyes up to give the deadest, meanest glare I can. He takes the hint, raising his palms. “Okay, okay, no Nik. Call Didz. Get him over. Have fun in the spare room, yeah? My roommate’s outta town so it’s free all night.” He winks at me. “And you don’t wanna spend it alone…” He leaves. Bugger.

Don’t want to take his advice. I don’t. I think this as I dial Didz’s number.

“’Lo?”

“Didz?”

“Yeah?” He sounds like one of those actors on The Bill who plays a bad guy who won’t open the door. I seriously don’t need to know where the two hundred quid came from.

“S’Me.”

I can feel the smirk flirting down the wire. “Oh yeah?”

“M’bored.” Well, he thinks I’m nineteen. He can’t expect heavenly wine and roses now, can he? “C’mere.”

“Where are you?”

“Jules’”

“You’ve still got my car.” Oops. Correction: Gary has still got your car.

“Getta taxi. C’mon.”

I can feel his resolve weakening like an old bit of flax, twisting and unravelling in my hands. I decide to seal the deal.

“Didz…”

“Yeah?”

“Still need a shower…”

The phone goes dead.

Victory is mine.

***

Jules leaps up like a good hostess at the sound of the doorbell and opens the door to reveal Didz. Didz’s hair’s all rumpled and shirt’s sporting this-seasons’ hastily-put-on look and those two, when coupled together, only mean one thing. However, I do not think about this. Didz is some trophy that’s a bit tarnished round the edges but everyone still competes over. Like the World Cup. Only, he’s not quite as spectacular or gleaming as that, even after sex (the man looks like a man, smells like a man, shags like a man, but sweats not at all…). So maybe he’s only the Snooker World Cup. If there is such a thing. I’m none too bright on my general sports knowledge. Part of the reason why I count Jules proudly as my best mate. His idea of sport is betting which globule of mash potato is going to fall from his ceiling first, fifty points if it hits something, seventy if it hits me or him and one hundred and fifty if it hits Stan because he’ll never wash it out his hair properly.

The other reasons as to why I love Jules flash back into my mind as he waves Didz in with a lazy arm and a joint in the other hand and smiles at me like someone breaking a Caramel in two and stretching it out so all the golden caramel sweetness goes all molten until it snaps in the air and melts on your tongue.

Didz smiles at me, looking a bit flustered and breathless. He opens his mouth (well, opens the perpetually-open thing wider) to say something but gets rudely interrupted. By me. Running up to him, leaping into the air and hurling my arms round his neck and legs round his waist until I am hanging off him like the world’s pastiest limpet. Limpet-come-girlfriend, to be more precise.

I’d rate Didz’s reaction as ‘suitably overwhelmed’.

I am not satisfied. I flick my tongue out at his sideburns and purr into his ear:

“Boutfuckntime…watdyakeeeepmewaitinforrr, s’notlikeoo’vegorranythinbettertodo… ineededshagging – goodhalfhour – ‘go. Aww…Didzy…bedroom’satterway…”

Didz staggers forward and somehow manages to still keep that nonplussed dignity that made me fall for him in the first place. I can see in Jules’ nice big mirror. My reflection’s peering at me all bleary eyed and incredulous. Like there’s something wrong with limpeting myself to Didz?

Ach, don’t be silly reflection. Mirror people are always stupid. They make your face all backwards and make you think it really looks like that. Your entire world is the wrong way round and we all just accept it in the name of vanity. I don’t look as good the backwards way. My ears stick out more, I swear. Arse looks good from this angle, the cheap suit stretched tight over it as I cling on for dear life.

Jules apparently agrees. Walks up to PeteDidz and grabs my arse. Unfortunately with hand holding joint, so a nice round circle gets burnt into my suit. And boxers. And arse. Thankfully, am too drunk to do anything but giggle. Girlishly. And twirl mine and Didz’s hair together. Into a manly twirl. It is not a plait. Definitely not a French plait. There is no way I know how to do French plaits. That’d be silly. And there is no way that the whole limpet/plaiting thing reminds me of me and my sister both donning Brownie uniforms and declaring that I was to be called Judy (a la Judy Garland) and plaiting our hair together because were really Siamese twins.

When Didz is all broad and manly and commanding I can imagine being kept as his bit on the side for a while. Didz looks like this all the time though. And whilst visions of him shagging me senseless in positions of varying degrees of acrobacy do make my nose twitch (a sure sign of arousal, one that never fails but does make me look like a particularly irate rabbit) there isn’t a lot of room for them around Street Boy. I don’t think Didz’ll mind. He has a FiloFax. People with FiloFaxes like scheduling.

Stan glides over to Jules and glares at me. Like it’s my fault PeteDidz is blessed with a nice arse for each direction. Jules smears his face at him, a smile all blurred into slow motion. Stan tangles his hand into Jules’ hair, like he knows it’s only meant for him, and flicks furious eyes up to meet mine. He might as well just go the whole hog and piss on him, well and truly mark his territory.

S’not like I want Jules anyway. Just because he’s all brown-eyes-skin-hair-voice-smile and has an arse like Eve’s hanging apple of temptation (but less red. Unless he’s tried to shag Stan on the hob again. Left a nasty welt for a while, that escapade did) and the fact he is quite willing to dote on people in his own Jules-way, doesn’t mean I want him. Not when that bony Lucifer Minion folds his black curly haired self round him like some cheap imitation of me. The market knock-off to my designer original. With more money and a degree and a Porsche and tailored suits and a boyfriend instead of a part-time shagger.

Still.

Didz pulls me out of the glares and wandering hands of Stanthony and Jules and strides like a conquering hero to the spare room.

***

Wake up to the sound of an alarm on Tuesday morning. It isn’t my alarm. My alarm is on my mobile and is in no way a poly-whatsit version of Chiquitita. In no way.

I’d been having a dream where I got kidnapped by Street Boy and held at gunpoint and was rudely interrupted by the moment he’d decided that naked kidnapping was the way forward and was holding a gun to my head to make me strip. Like it was needed. I open my eyes and get confronted with a haze. Last night may have been not the wisest idea I’ve ever had. I shift my head slightly.

Fuck, there is definitely something pressing against my temple. I pull my head back to survey the scene and look for Street Boy’s possible accomplices. I squint for clarity. My brain processes the information. Slowly.

I’m under some bedcovers. I’m not alone. Didz is next to me. My head is, for some reason, next to his crotch. And Didz is clearly having a good dream. The evidence is pressed against my head. Great.

If I were feeling charitable then I’d help him out, give him a nice good morning wake up call since the siren alarm in his ear isn’t doing the trick. Sadly I am not feeling charitable. I feel like the rear end of a pantomime horse. Ish. My mouth feels like the rear end of a pantomime horse did the conga through it. Twice. Wiping its feet on my tongue like a doormat.

It’s safe to say I've been healthier in my time.

I return myself to my full, upright position and switch off the alarm with the careful application of my fist. I wait for Didz to wake up. I can’t work out if his snoring is adorable or irritating.

A good three minutes pass.

It’s irritating.

I do the noble thing and kick him. “Ah, you woke up…”

He mumbles at me, “…don’t have to be up yet Kate, got a meeting later…” Then returns to snoring. Louder.

Kate? The she-demon from my paranoia has a name? Fucking wench. He better not be fucking dreaming about her. Not after last night’s escapades. Not that I can remember them, but I imagine that since I was in dire need of a damn good fucking when I called him and determined to get Street Boy out my mind once and for all, there were certainly escapades of the highest degree last night.

Kate doesn’t sound like a name for an interesting girl. Ireni or Selena would be an interesting name for an interesting girl. Marina Aquamarina would be very interesting. Then again, Pete hardly sounds that thrilling. Maybe judging by name isn’t the best way to go through life. My charm is one that shines through despite the name, one that fills the air like the delicate bouquet of velvet red roses. I bet this Kate-wench has the charm of a praying mantis. They eat the males’ head after mating though; Didz definitely has a head. Maybe they don’t sleep together. That’s a comforting thought, actually. All the more for me. Would a red sequinned gown be a bit too tawdry to get married in? Considering his affectionate nickname for me – tart – Didz might just want me in suspenders and a bra, sod the dress lark. Bridal lingerie. Fun to be had by all.

I kick him again. Harder.

“Wah? What the fuck?”

Ah, good morning to you too, darling. Sleep well?

“Get up. Work.”

“Fuck?”

“No, not fuck. We have to go to work.”

Didz regards me blearily then shuts his one open eye and snuggles back into his pillow with a disgruntled dog expression on his face. Like a Labradidz. Had I not decided to find him irritating, I think I’d find it all rather pathetically adorable.

I want to bite his nose.

“Didz!”

“Mmff.”

“How the fuck you ever managed to end up earning four times what I do I’ll never know… Didz! Wake up!”

Again with the kicking.

“Alright, alright, I’m up, I'm up.” He swings back the covers and roots around on the floor for his boxers. For an eternity. Before deciding that the search is futile and just stalking off without any clothes on. His Rolex glints at me mockingly. I bet it remembers last night.

He’s got a nice arse.

I like how all his muscles flow together with that lethargic confidence, effortless grace. Street Boy’s all anger, pure aggression baiting you, daring you to even dare to tame him, threatening you with the promise of control. Labradidz knows he wears the trousers. Or not, as the case may be, the expanse of his back crying out for my teeth marks as it walks away from me, or some mark of possession at any rate. I want to keep him. I want him to keep me. Order me around for all eternity, make me his slave.

Except I don’t. The novelty of authority wears thin after a while. The constant battle for control that would engulf our every eternity between Street Boy and me would never grow cold. He’s too proud to surrender so easily; I want to see the fire of malice crack his eyes open wide, the threat of punishments I know are yet to come as a result of his submission, glorious subservience, screaming out loud as he cries my name, only for me.

Wish I had some recollection of last night. Other than Street Boy, vodka and coming on to Julian. Again. I must stop doing that. Things are really gonna start getting goddamn awkward if I can’t keep my fucking hands to myself. And my ego might stop bouncing back; its elasticity may decrease over time. That Nivea Q10 repair cream doesn’t work on egos as well as facial wrinkles does it?

The faint hiss of the shower stops and I decide to run the gauntlet of bumping into Stan whilst being, well, lacking in the clothing department, and make a mad dash for the shower across the hall.

The minute I stand up, I realise the mad dash aspect is going to remain a thing of dreams. My head is in no fit state to go anywhere fast.

Crawling is my friend. Whoever decided humans ought to walk on their hind legs was an idiot. Crawling is the way forward. Slow and steady wins the race. I am the tortoise.

Door handles are the sworn enemy of all modern-day crawlers. As is laminate flooring. And ridiculously glossy painted doors that mean they can’t be used to provide stable leverage for us crawlers whilst we tackle the difficult prospect of opening doors. I blame Ikea for this. Entirely. And Stan. Wanker.

Julian’s bathroom light is in no way flattering to the undead. I look green. My eyes are black and are apparently sunk into my skull. My skin looks like paper, ghost whiter than normal, aside from the odd green luminescent quality it seems to have adopted at some stage during the twelve hour night. My chest is remarkably unscathed, considering I shared a bed with La Labradidz extraordinaire and last time that left my body in about the same state as it would if I had taken up professional wrestling at the weekend.

Oh, hold on. Yeah, there it is.

Great.

Who honestly has a love bite when they pass the age of fourteen?

And it is a fucking bite as well, there’s fucking Didz’s teeth marks in my fucking neck. And red marks round my wrists.

It all comes flooding back.

He tied me to the fucking bed! I seem to remember agreeing to it at some point but then changing my mind. That’s when he bit my neck. Bastard. And he still kept calling me a tart. Why did he tie me to the bed though?

I contemplate this as I try and work out what the hell Julian’s shower means. Hot water comes out the tap over the bath. Now, somewhere around here there’s a lever for the shower head to come out to play, wash all yesterday’s grime away and leave me all shining and new. My fingers stumble across it and pull, my neck thrown back and eyes shut, basking in the moment, that little holy ritual of hot water on grimy skin, waiting for it.

“Fuck me that’s fucking cold!” My mind is apparently too addled to move but not addled enough to be silenced. Standing there swearing whilst sub-zero water drowns over you and makes your skin shed that cast off green that was night-fires and witches oils and leaves it, instead, a healthy shade of blue. Where’s the fucking reflex arc when you need it, making me leap out the way?

Still standing there. Not getting any warmer. I push the little lever back in; hot water streams out the tap and burns my feet. Oh this is just peachy. Why did Didz tie me to the bed? It’s not like I was going to be putting up much of a fight and I needed restraining. And I’m hardly a violent drunk – I want to befriend everyone when I’m drunk. One time I decided to befriend a Doberman who started off nice enough but then mistook my wrist for Pedigree Chum. I’ve still got a nice crescent-shaped scar on the side of my arm where I managed to whip my wrist away. Then the owner started getting uppity and rattling his numerous gold chains at me and screaming about animal abuse. We were alright having a friendly discussion until I let my brain venture into the equation, and apparently gold chains + shaved head + angry dog was equal to some degree of attraction at that point. I tried to kiss him and he threw a can of Carling at my head. I can’t remember if it hit or missed.

So I was hardly being resistant last night. Chancing pulling the lever again – same result. Only colder. I push it back in and let my feet simmer away nicely for a while in the hot. Or maybe I was. Faint recollections of me being on top of Didz in the spare bedroom stir in my mind. Straddling his thighs, taut muscle stretched beneath me, shedding clothing, his muscle outwitting the lithe flesh and bone I got handed to me, and me ranting at him. Drunkenly.

“’Nother fuckin’ thing whilewe’reatit… wasssallthisbout… tart… allfuckintime… ‘vegotta name you know… mightnotbefuckin… exotic… fuckin’ Didz, busstillafuckinname, you know? Don’t wanna be called fuckin’ tart allthefuckintime… d’you think I’m a tart, Didz?”

He pulled back from running his tongue round my collarbone. “Huh, no, ‘course not…” Hands were trying to ease off the boxers I still had on, mouth trailing down my chest.

“Didz!”

“Mmmwhat?”

“You think I'm a fucking tart, don’t you?”

“No,” my boxers were halfway off. He wasn’t listening to me.

So I slapped him.

That might possibly explain why he tied me to the bed. Lever flicked. Cold water. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result. I think in some versions of the dictionary ‘hungover’ also has this description.

Cold shower it is then. It’ll be bracing.

S’pose I should be grateful Didz didn’t gag me as well. I seem to remember talking a lot at him last night. Mind you, if he had gagged me I probably would’ve just kept right on talking. Once I get determined to do something there’s no stopping me.

And it’s not like being tied to the bed was the worst thing that could’ve happened. Lying flat on my front, face pressed into pillow soft cloud, smothering the shouts from my mouth as he thrust into me, hands tight around my wrists and pulling at the already aching skin as it was worn by the ties he’d used. Me suddenly screaming at him to stop, hearing ‘tart’ out his lips again, then him biting at my neck and thrusting into me so hard I swear I saw white lights waiting to carry me away. I had tears pricking in my eyes. Not because I was sad, not because of the burn round my wrists and of my pride and round my heart. Just part of me forgot, somewhere along the line, the total thrill of giving yourself away. Afterwards he had this look of dazed euphoria on his face, hair all tangled round itself and eyes wide and stunning.

I decided to take advantage; “Didz, you got any coke?”

Nodding followed by a bag being wrenched out his trouser pocket. Me thinking that this relationship is beginning to work on whole new levels. Didz coming back to earth and noticing the water swilling in my eyes, water that was out of place now it was masked by the future joys the little bag held. Didz leaning over to where I was sitting up, back against the headboard that had once entrapped me, hand in my hair, kissing me softly, devastatingly, sucking the air out my lungs and chasing all everything away. Me wrapping myself round him as he slept, head in the crook of his neck, protecting myself from him, basking in the warmth of his body and the slow of his breathing. The smell of sweat and sin and cigarettes and sex.

The smell that had sunk into my own skin, another mark of possession, one that was slowly draining into the plug hole, cold water drowning it out, leaving me like a fresh canvas, waiting for someone new. Street Boy’s grime. I bet my tongue would have to work through seven layers of dirt to even begin to taste the spark of the skin beneath. It’s a Herculean labour but one I’ll gladly undertake.

Something hammers on the door.

“Pete? That you in there?”

“Yeah…”

Sound of Jules’ laugh, raspy and smooth as his skin, followed by a hiss of ‘fuck off’ and another laugh.

“Can you hurry up man, er, me and Stan kinda need a shower…” More laughter.

I can imagine Stan’s smug face behind the door, boring into me. His eyes are black, a sure sign of evil. His nose is too long. He scares me quite a bit. A lot of people do. I don’t think him and Julian are right together. My mind summons up the image of them stood in the bathtub, water reigning down royally over them, slicking their skins together. Stan’s skeletal frame and Julian’s sweat and lust skin, pale and tanned at the same time, their mouths meeting in a violent clash, Stan eventually succumbing to Julian’s desire for control, his hands on Julian’s face, keeping him near, Julian’s pressed hard into the base of his back, seeking out that far more primal contact…

Fuck.

I rescue my voice, throwing my sanity a lifeline in the process. Stan is not going to clutter up my fantasies, hell no: “Will you two wait till I’m out of earshot before you start having watery, yelpy sex?”

“Hey!” Stan’s voice. Irate, fast paced, efficient as always. Julian squanders his syllables, hands them out like biscuits and brandy, equal measures of comfort and slow seduction. Stan speaks as if each second that passes his word ration is declining. It increases even more when he’s pissed off. “I’m not fucking yelpy.” The sound of Jules shushing him and whispering things in that reassuring tone of voice. Stan’s tone comes back, louder and faster and harsher than ever – “I’m not yelpy, am I?”

Sowing seeds of doubt that will fester and decay and allow the tree of paranoia to bloom is a fantastic hobby. I suspect it would make for a good spectator sport too. Life is good.

***

It’s February. Nearly springtime. Rabbits and whatnot leaping gaily or whatever it is they do before going at it like rabbits. And it’s warm, surprisingly enough, so much so that most people around me have forgone the jacket and suit regime in favour of a more summertime flair. Short sleeves are everywhere. I do so love how the British get so overenthusiastic about any temperature above six degrees and declare it the start of summer. It endears them within my heart. And today is a great display, a glorious Tuesday in March.

And I’m wearing a scarf. A big woolly one. A sheep didn’t just get sheared, oh no, it gave its life for this scarf.

People keep looking at me funny.

I don’t want to be wearing a scarf; in fact, there’s every probability I will dissolve in a pile of sweat and my own juices leaving only a steaming mass of rags behind on my swivel chair. I’m quite warm.

But, thanks to a certain Mr…

Hold on. I only know him as Didz. That can’t be his real name, surely. And he must have a surname, he’s not Cher. Or Bono. I wouldn’t be shagging him if he was Cher or Bono. I’m smart like that, see. Didz could be a real name in certain smaller European countries, I’m sure, but there’s no way Didz has any trace of the exotic in him. He thought spaghetti Bolognese was a type of liqueur. Foolish man. But, anyway, thanks to the artist formerly known as Didz, I have an island of purple drifting calmly in the pasty sea that is my skin. It could give Greenland a run for its money, I swear.

“Doherty!” I leap about three feet in the air at the sound of my boss’ voice. I always manage to look so damn guilty when I’m not even doing anything. I’m working diligently. Ish. “Why are you wearing that ridiculous scarf?”

“I, er,”

“Very well! Working late tonight remember!” He strides off, a regular Caesar amongst men, away to wrestle with lions and other untamed beasts.

I loathe my own tongue at times. It’s gotten me in trouble in numerous occasions, usually as a result of the person it was wrapped around. Yesterday it was my own perilous words that turned mutineer, preying upon my weakness and desperation, making me give away my precious time for fuck all.

At least now I am above it. I decided, at some point during the course of the morning before work, a large proportion of which was spent fishing for my underwear from out underneath the bed where Didz had managed to bury it last night, that I am no longer having any interest in Street Boy whatsoever. I am resolute and confident and definite in my decision. I will remain strong and unwavering. A colossus, a pillar of society. A role model to young and old. I will be aloof.

No interest in him whatsoever.

If he was on fire, I would be wonderfully benevolent and put him out, producing buckets of water from somewhere and dousing the flames in a resounding act of bravery. If his clothes were still flaming and clinging to him, muscles pressing hard up against his jeans, then I’d need to make him do that thing, the one that all the health and safety training videos and leaflets bang on about, the drop and roll. I’d probably be risking my life a fair bit. Fingers desperately clawing at his clothes as we wrestled into the dirt, hot blue eyes scalding with fear and rage at the violation he felt as a result of him needing salvation, his legs wrapped inadvertently around mine, forcing me closer whilst he clung on for dear life, sweat pricking from his brow and straining over his lips as we both fought for air as the flames swirled around us.

Purely benevolent.

But only if he was on fire. Any other situation and I would have little to no interest in him whatsoever. I haven’t even glanced out the window once yet today, and it’s already ten o clock. Because I just don’t care anymore. Not for him.

It’s only ten o clock? It’s gonna be a long day.

My phone rings.

“In a meeting. Bored out me tree.”

“Didz?”

“Yeah.”

I may have done the selfsame thing to him last night but being on the receiving end isn’t half crap. Nothing like a declaration of sheer boredom to make you feel loved and wanted.

“Why don’t you come up and see me in… ten minutes? Make me smile, yeah?”

I always had my suspicions of Didz being a bit of a sap but the quoting Steve Harley by means of a seduction really does confirm it.

A movement out the window catches my eye. Street Boy. My, he’s early. Must be eager. Hold on, he’s not alone. That was fucking fast. He normally lurks around kicking walls and carving into things with his flick knife, necking vodka and smoking cigarettes for a good hour or two before anyone even chances going near him. Him getting someone in the first five minutes must be pretty damn good, a turn up for the books at any rat –

My heart shrivels and dies in my throat.

Street Boy. Kissing the bloke.

Long and hard, their hands intertwined, right in the middle of the alleyway, their merging forms framed perfectly, like some old photograph. I feel sick. Street Boy doesn’t kiss anyone. Ever. I’ve been a silent witness to his every transgression that played out through my window; he never touches them, never kisses them, never makes any physical contact. Just leads them up the back stairs and bolts the door. Chucks them out an hour, half an hour, later. Never kisses them. Never lets his tense body soften into theirs, head thrown back so they are as close as possible, skins touching everywhere they can.

I feel dizzy. Red spots dance in front of my eyes. The scenery around me spins in a whirl of grey and beige and digits without meaning. My palms are sweaty. Practically dripping. My scarf and suit and long sleeved shirt that only just covers up the red round my wrists are all deadweights dragging me under. From in the haze I see Street Boy pull back from the bloke, immaculate as ever, hair shifting in a deadly torrent as his neck twists until he’s looking right at me as I look out the window.

He’s looking right at me.

All my clothing suddenly gets tighter. His eyes are shrouded in shadows but I can see his mouth, see the way the lips part almost reluctantly as he holds my gaze, the anchor in my vision, before the rouge gets split with a devilish smirk and the faintest flick of his head.

“Fucking bastard…”

A black veil falls all around me, the same shade as his hair. Glorious shining black.

***

Fuck that’s cold.

“Pete?”

More coldness, splashing on my face. Maybe it’ll douse the flames. Maybe its Street Boy’s eyes, maybe the colours finally broke through that frail little circle that held them in and they’re raining over everything, staining it all the colours of bruises and thunder.

“Pete!”

Maybe I’m drowning in it. Funny, I always thought of drowning to be painful, those sharp splinters in the lungs when you hold your breath too long tenfold, screaming pain before viscous blank. But this is kind of peaceful, soft, a faint hum in my ears and blessed coldness falling on me.

“Fuck’s sake, why the fuck’s he wearing a fucking scarf on the hottest day of the fucking year?”

“Julian! Your mouth is atrocious!”

I snort. “Depends what he’s doing with it…”

There’s an audible gasp around me as I murmur out loud. Fretful faces get themselves into focus. It’s bizarre. Mary, all forty years playing across her face, maternal concern rearing its head. Julian’s concerned amusement, eyes wary and fearful but mouth in that perpetual half-smile.

“You fainted, man.”

Fuck, I’m never gonna hear the end of this.

“I mean, really, properly, fall off your chair, crack your head on the radiator under the window fainted.”

“Mmmfffggghh.”

“Yeah, I thought so too, man.”

My head hurts. Bloody radiator. Fucking lack of arm rests on my fucking swivel chair. Fucking hottest day of the year. Fucking Didz biting me. Fucking Street Boy. Fucking kissing that other bloke. Fucking staring at me, fucking looking for a fucking audience, fuck –

Hang on. Street Boy didn’t see me faint, did he?

Oh fuck, I’ll never live it down if he saw me. All my nonchalant dignity will have just twatted it’s head on the radiator and crawled away and died.

Arms are lifting me up. I didn’t think I was still on the floor.

“C’mon man, break time.”

I stagger a bit as Julian leads me away and try to look more out of it than I actually am, so as to pretend the gawping isn’t getting to me. I never realised just how many people work in the office. I mean, there’s a fair few normally but just when I'm at the height of my embarrassment they multiply. Fucking rubbernecking parasites.

I’m more than half tempted to growl at them.

Julian lowers me with some degrees of care I didn’t think him capable of possessing onto a stack of copier paper. “You fainted.”

“I know.”

“Why are you wearing a fucking scarf?”

I tug it off from round my neck. Julian’s eyes widen in amazement.

“Holy fuck!”

“Yeah.”

“Didz do that?”

“Yeah.”

He leans in for a closer inspection. “That’s a thing of fucking beauty my friend; you should wear it with fucking pride.”

I raise my eyebrows at him, wary of his sincerity. He certainly looks genuine, but with that lazy tone of voice you just can’t tell when he’s being sarcastic and when he’s not half the time, all those syllables that convey a constant sonic shrug of the shoulders.

Jules hands me a lit cigarette.

“I hardly think this is a recommended course of treatment for us fainters, you know.”

“Shut the fuck up and get the fuck on with it.” Ah, the Julian I know and love.

“Oh, by the way,” Julian has a pained expression on his face, as if dredging the memory or shard of information from the dark recesses of his mind is something of a major task that requires all his energy. It’s lucky he looks like he does, otherwise he’d be nowhere, I swear.

“Didz was on the phone, yeah? I took a message. Apparently he wants to see you after lunch. And Stan was on the other line, wanted to see you straight away.” He lets out a stream of smoke where it curls in the air, spinning softly like white fingers streaking through black hair. “Don’t know why.”

“Jules, what did you say to Didz and Stan about why I didn’t answer the phone?”

Julian shrugs: “Told Didz you’d fainted and Stan that you were busy. Didz didn’t seem too concerned though.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, he was laughing a lot.”

Well, if he’s going to be like that about my welfare than Didz can stick the bridal lingerie and Didz Junior where the sun don’t shine. And I’ll call the RSPCA when he does. Git.

“So Stan wants to see me straight away?” Julian nods.

“I’d show him that bite if I were you. He’s gotta respect you at least a little bit after that, surely.”

So that’s the mystery method of gaining Stanthony’s respect. Let some tart-minded cruel-hearted Kate-shagging dolt called Didz use my neck for a chew toy. Fucking great that is, great. I wrap the dead sheep determinedly back round my neck. Stanthony, then Didz. Once more into the breach dear friends…


	3. Chapter 3

Stan snarls at me. Literally. His lip curls into a feral sneer and a low-pitched growl of pure rage and frustration slips out his mouth. His eyes are glowing and wild, hair shaking under the gravity of his emotion. His suit, navy blue as always, normally looks as if it’s an extension of his crisp, neat soul. Now it’s a cage, barring him in, keeping him shackled to the motions of normalcy when every fibre of his being and all the dreams harnessed in his soul are trying to break free, run loose and unbound, unleashing the anger and ravaging the pyrrhic world around him.

Scary stuff.

I slip into the seat in front of his desk. The wooden construction suddenly seems a bit of a frail barrier between me and the enraged beast opposite. I always had him pegged for being coldly soulless. Now his soul’s streaming out his skin and setting a menacing, shining, almost happy crescent flash of white into his eyes.

“Doherty.”

I can’t reply. Not to that growl. I turn into a cat and let all my hair spike up on end. Can feel all of them pushing against my shirt, soldiers standing to attention. I don’t think Stan is intimidated. Fool. He probably should be.

“You need to stop coming on to my boyfriend.”

…Or maybe not. I try and cower behind my collar. Behind my tie. Behind my anything.

My mouth is protesting of its own accord again: “I don’t keep coming onto him…”

“I saw you in the kitchen last night.”

Oh. Damn.

“Well, won’t happen again…”

He doesn’t seem satisfied. My skin feels like its sparking under his eyes. I don’t know what else I can say. Take a vow of celibacy? Join a convent? I was practically bloody celibate for the best part of an era until Didz came rolling along with his elaborate seduction ploy. I can’t go back there. Fate can’t drop the breadcrumbs and let me follow the trail and then leave me back where I started. Especially not after today. Street Boy just…giving himself to someone else. I need my Didz-sized consolation more than ever. He’s the human equivalent of fluffy pyjamas and a cup of tea. Secret healing powers. I need something. It doesn’t seem quite real. Really. Nothing seems that real. Like the world’s behind glass and I’m the kid who’s crying because their ice cream just fell off the cone but is trying to peer into the tank full of life in front of my eyes at the same time.

Bugger. Could murder an ice cream now. Bloody slackers, ice cream men, taking the winter off. Wonder if they head south like geese.

“Why are you wearing a scarf?”

“Didz bit me.”

He seems remarkably unsurprised by the revelation. It could all be part of Didz’s standard communication. Hi, I’m Didz. Back to mine for up-against-the-wall sex? Yeah? Then I’ll bite you. See you after lunch. My eyes scan Stan’s neck for any evidence of a Didz-bite. It looks stunningly unscathed. Mind, StanDidz would not provide as good a spectacle as PeteDidz did. Stan has no arse to speak of. Jules is always all about the arse. I think Stan keeps him drugged up like a trophy wife.

“Doherty…” Stan’s purring my name at me again. He’s all coiled up, vicious and menacing. I try and think back if he locked the door after he shut it behind me.

His office is spacious but all the walls are closing in around me. If my eyes weren’t so trapped on him I’d get leather swivel chair envy. Mine’s so damn scratchy. He’s got panoramic views of something other than a back alley, too. He’s what I could be, if I tried. Cared. Part of me thinks today I should say I’d trade anything to have never clapped eyes on Street Boy because I wouldn’t have that ragged feeling fraying around the edges of myself and that frail knot of childish disbelief I’m clinging to. But I wouldn’t have much of anything else, either.

I want a drink. A proper one. A double.

Anthony smiles at me. I know that smile. It hypnotises his victims before he strikes.

“Come here.”

“Why?” My voice is pretending I’m Alice in Wonderland. I can actually feel the ankle socks and headband waiting in the wings to adorn my being.

He smiles harder. Eyes burn. “Come here Doherty.”

I shake my head. I can feel my eyes wide with fear and lips pouting. He’s leaning on his elbows on the desk, eyes fixed onto me. Last person to look at me like that was Wolfman. They don’t make English teachers like that anymore, I can tell you. I was powerless then. I s’pose I’m just as powerless now.

No! Grow some spine. Fight the power. I’m the king of the swingers, baby, the jungle VIP. Not Stan. No.

If I'm trying to evoke any pity from him with my facial expression, it’s failing ridiculously. I decide to switch track. Pity was never going to sway the hand of Stan, clearly. I’m just too good-hearted for my own good sometimes, always wanting to see the good in people. Always said he was pure evil. There is no mercy or pity contained in that pale-skinned chest. None. There beats only an evil heart. I bet his evil heart has that same evil Stan haircut around it too. Glossy black curls. If I had that hair it’d frizz up into an afro, I just know it would. But I suppose sleek hair is an advantage of being the devil incarnate.

Am not envious in any way.

I flick through my jukebox of possible responses.

Incredulous sneering is a popular choice.

“Why would I want to come over there?”

Stan just smiles at me, but there’s a heightened degree of satisfaction in there.

Like I’m playing whatever game he’s embroiled me in. No, Stanthony, I am merely trying to launch a vain attempt at an escape. I stand up and shuffle slightly in the direction of the doors. Stan’s just looking at me. Rage cuts through the rest of the world around me. It even manages to override the resounding relief I’ve just found lurking in the back of my mind as I realise that Stan’s office is blessed with air conditioning.

And shrinking walls. And Stan. But that isn’t a source of relief.

Wanker.

“I’ve gotta go back to my desk now…” I don’t want to turn my back on him. That survival instinct, primal, animal, lightning fast reactions. I do a damn good impression of a hermit crab and scuttle sideways. Until – damn.

Stan-shaped obstacle blocks my path. Fingers wrap round my scarf. They have no right to be there. It’s my scarf. And yes, it is red. And yes, it does have pink kittens on it with ‘furry fat cat’ stitched underneath them. And yes, I do have the matching hot water bottle, slippers and pyjamas and yes, they were my sisters’ Christmas present originally but they were too damn long for her. They’re toasty. It means Stan has no right to tarnish my pure furry fat cat happiness with his devil fingers.

“You and I both know you do fuck all, Doherty, so don’t give me that…”

“Just because I’m not holed up in my fucking fancy office all fucking day doesn’t mean I don’t achieve anything,” Stan’s eyes flash again and draw me closer.

“I do a lot for this fucking company –”

I do fuck all for this company. I while away hours and am totally ungrateful for every last penny of my pay cheque because it never lasts long enough for it to be worth it. Really, fuck all. A well trained chicken could probably do my job. But they wouldn’t look as good in a suit. My sleek frame was made for Dior suits. Sadly my bank balance isn’t. If Didz was any kind of human he’d keep his mistresses in the manner to which they have become accustomed and buy me nice stuff.

“– And the fact that wankers like you, Stan, don’t even fucking notice other people’s contributions because you think the sun shines out your own fucking arse –”

I really hope Stan doesn’t have the power to fire me.

“ – doesn’t mean that anyone else values you in any fucking way apart from fucking loathing the ground you think you’re too fucking good to walk upon.”

Then I realise I’m pinned against his desk. How did this happen? My scarf is tugged off, flung aside like a leaden soul cast into hell. My tie follows. Jacket next, followed by quick fingers on the buttons of my shirt.

How did this happen?

***

Day starts with a siren, sunshine and a purple bite bringing a nicely clashing contrast with my green skin. Short fainting spell, conversation with Julian as per usual at break. Quick trip upstairs to Stan’s office. Nothing to write home about.

So, please, someone, Lord, anyone, explain to me how I’ve ended up nude, on Anthony’s desk, with his mouth biting at my hipbone, my fingers shedding his shirt and my treason mouth gasping his name and please in equal measures.

How?

I don’t even like him.

I certainly don’t appreciate the way the shirt skims off his skin, pebble across white water, the frame so similar and familiar to the one I see in the mirror being revealed. Except, it’s not the same. My skin and bone’s all hung together, his is all knotted, all wound tight, fierce aggression and none of the languor of mine. All his bones press into his skin with urgency, his eyes are brown but ravenous, mine just scream of innocence that isn’t really mine.

And whilst I’m on it, I certainly don’t have any attraction to the way that mouth of his is heathen, spitting out curses and taunting my skin cruelly, making every possible aspect of pleasure be tainted with the feeling that its merely a punishment in disguise.

Or the fact that his face seems to be the other half of mine. The outward curve of my nose is the other half of his, the slow slope I didn’t just run my fingers over, the deceptive softness of it stinging my fingertips. The cheekbones I don’t really have are saved by his over-angular ones; the thinness of his face is salvaged by the shape of mine.

I don’t like how easy it is for me to lose track of myself. Don’t like how my fingers tangle round his as I try to push him off and he smirks and leans in closer, my heart charging uselessly around. Don’t like how I can’t separate which ones are mine, how our skins blend until we’re both just as perfect and dirty and ragged as the other.

His tongue lures further down my hipbone. My back arcs expectantly, my body not responding to my mind’s protests of hatred and loathing and the fact he’s a wanker.

He pulls back. Smirking.

Makes my voice all low and desperate. “Oh you fucking tease…”

The answering smile is positively evil.

He stands back, removing all that blessed, fucking awful, contact. His fingers manipulate round the button of his fly. My breath catches cleanly in my throat. My eyes widen with everything but lust. Anything but lust. Please?

He’s on me again, hands clawing at my back and dragging me back off his desk, clumsy tangle of limbs as we stand for a moment, tongues clashing round each other and fighting for control. I’ve already lost before it’s even begun. The fragile balance is gone, blink of an eye, and he’s collapsing back onto his fucking chair and dragging me down with him.

I think, I think, I know where this is going to end up.

He’s smirking. He knows I'm already too far gone to tease. Or test. Or protest. I don’t want him. My mind and body are just doing a fair job at pretending I do. Fuck.

I’m straddling him and waiting. His hair’s a fucking temptation in itself, all those begging hand holds. His collar bones ask to be inkwells, really, long to be explored by a quicksilver tongue, mapped and committed to my memory.

He reaches around to his desk draw, searching for something.

I hope it’s not a stapler.

Oh, no.

Not quite.

“Fuck, Stan, what about –” Hands lift my hips. Hands lower me down onto his cock. “Ouch! Ever heard of fucking foreplay?!”

“Shut the fuck up Doherty.”

I obey. Foolishly. He gives a roll of his hips. And I'm gone.

My hands snarl into his shoulders, levering myself up and down until all the frail little protests drown in my throat. “Fuck, Stan, fuck!”

I don’t think he needs the encouragement. Really. His cheeks stay pale but drip with sweat, mine flush red and eyelashes slam together, the clanking of metal bars falling down not even beginning to blank out the cries and moans of raw pleasure seeping into the room as my back arches, pushing me harder onto him.

And he’s shouting my name; “Pete, fuck – Pete… Jesus!”

Funny; now I've got someone bucking and writhing and shouting my name I feel more like a debased dirty little tart than ever.

His hand wraps round my cock and the rhythm’s harsh as the hipbones and chest that keep crashing into mine.

“Pete…” He leans forward, controlling hand off my hip and pulling too hard at my hair, dragging me in close so he can growl it in my ear as he comes. I don’t want to cry his name, don’t want to give any obscenities or words of praise as his hand twists hard and razor blade flashes of white slash through my vision and litter it with trash, cut up scenes of Anthony’s head flung back and neck taut with pleasure and the bitter spark of Street Boy softening into some unworthy stranger.

I don’t want to. But I do.

We both sit there, for a second, drawing in air like we’re drowning. I probably am. Stan’s still smirking at me, victory swirling all around him, gloating in every stream of sweat that draws my eyes back across his chest. My legs are sticking to the leather of his chair. Thank god this didn’t happen on mine. Aside from there being an audience, I’d have bloody awful burns on my legs now from that scratchy fabric. Match the ones on my wrists. I can feel my skin itching to crawl away from me. Stan’s still smirking.

“Best, get, back… to my desk…”

Stan smirks harder. I feel scared again. Cheap and scared.

And I’m still too bloody hot.

***

Lunchtime. The dead sheep’s back round my neck. Street Boy is chalking up a mysterious absence. I’ve got two hours to make up today and two hours tomorrow. In fact, I think I’m just going to work through lunch for the rest of the week. And then the rest of my life after that. I find myself somewhat unable to meet Julian’s eye. I can’t look at him. I think I might burst into flames if I do. Purely for being a truly shite human being.

I don’t think I’m even human. I’m sub-human. Approaching the sea creatures end of the spectrum. Down in the deep blue sea. I don’t want to be here. It’s a lonely place. Most places are lonely places.

Except Didz isn’t lonely because he has Kate. Apparently. And Julian’s not lonely because he has Stan. And even though Stan is of roughly the same breed of scum as I am, if he leaves Julian well alone then Julian still won’t be lonely because he’ll find someone else. Because he’s good looking and nice enough, all things considered. Street Boy isn’t lonely because he has his new friend to occupy his time. I think even Mary has a poodle at home.

I squint at the picture on her desk. It’s a rabbit. Two rabbits. Two rabbits that do a damn good poodle impersonation. I could propose to Mary. She’d look after me, cook me hot dinners. Knit me more scarves and sew patchwork quilts to save me from the harshest of winters. I could move into her flowery-wallpapered house and creep round as if on eggshells and sleep in her back box room like a lodger, saying ‘good morning’ to her with a cheery smile as she butters my soldiers for my egg each and every day.

Don’t think she’d have me though. I think the fact I am affiliated with drug dealers would be a sticking point. And my shagging Didz. And my best mate’s boyfriend. All whilst my heart is betrothed to Street Boy, who is in turn shagging several other people, but is enjoying shagging at least one of them. This is on top of the fact I lie, steal and drink or snort or swallow most anything that stands still long enough for me to get my pilfering fingers on it.

The personal ad writes itself really.

Shouldn’t really be wallowing in self pity. It’s all my own doing. Doesn’t stop that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach though. It rages on. Like Braveheart.

I get the feeling that the landscape of my soul is frighteningly similar to the back alley. Devoid of life apart from vermin, light scarcely able to break in through the darkness, graffiti and debris littered everywhere. A distinct lack of Street Boy. Distinct lack of beauty.

The phone’s still ringing at me. I’ve been prestigiously ignoring it for a while, but, fuck, it’s determined to interrupt my thoughts.

“Finally!”

“Didz.”

“Bout time you picked up, thought you’d fainted again.” He snickers down the line. “You coming up or what?”

“Best not, really busy, got loads to do…” Even though I know he’s cheating on me, even though I know he couldn’t care less if I was sleeping with everyone he knows (probably wouldn’t realise unless he caught me in bed with them all simultaneously, bless him) I still can’t see him. I can’t. I feel vaguely nauseous as it is, last thing I need is manhandling.

Didz snorts. “Oh, come on.”

I put on my authoritative voice: “Didz, look, I’m serious. I have overtime to do and I’m busy all afternoon. I’ll see you later, maybe, okay?”

“Alright, alright, keep your knickers on.”

He hangs up. I'm going to be in bed alone tonight by nine. If I was a girl I’d probably eat lots of ice cream. But since I’m not, I’ll have to get blind drunk instead. That’ll be two gins then. Maybe a bit of ice cream. Not that I have any. Or any cash to buy any. I don’t have any food actually. I ate the last of it on Sunday night after Didz chucked me out. Coleslaw never tasted so good. I knew those ‘best before’ things were all corporate lies.

Mary is looking more and more like good wife material as the day wears on.

***

I leave work at seven, humming to myself. Fleetwood Mac. I get haunted by the Mac. Stevie Nicks is after my bloody soul. And I want to stop thinking about tomorrow. Because tomorrow I’ll be reminded of all the things I’ve done today and every notch on my bedpost forms another furrow on my brow. And I can’t afford Botox.

I figure that it takes me about half an hour to get home, maybe even an hour if I wander aimlessly through town and miss the train accidentally-on-purpose and have to get a bus that drives to bloody Nova Scotia and back before taking me home. That’ll leave about an hour for me to mope around before bedtime. It’s still more time devoted to moping than I’d really like, but the cleaner threw me out so she could whip out the broom and get going.

I could always wander through the dodgy part of town by the river and see if I get mugged. That’d add a fair bit of time onto the journey. I don’t actually have anything of value on me, but my shoes are nice enough. Little bit scuffed, but wearable.

Don’t want to go home alone. I’ll end up dancing round my living room to Dusty Springfield in an attempt to cheer myself up. It’ll work as long as I'm pretending I’m the sax player on Son Of A Preacher Man, but the minute Anyone Who Had A Heart flicks on I'm a goner. I’ll end up calling Jules, like I always do. Only I can’t because I’ll get Attack Of The Guilt. It’s deadly. I know. I killed a spider when I was eight and my sister started crying because it was not only her friend, but part of her science project. So to compensate I let the one that hung outside my window (called Alfred; had the same spindly grace as the butler off Batman) move inside where it’s warm. I felt better. Like a good human. Like Mother Theresa would be phoning any day for a chinwag and tips on helping the unwashed masses. But then I woke up one day with Alfred on my face. I screamed. A lot. And then my mum killed Alfred too, when she slapped me coz she thought I was hysterical. Then I felt twice as bad. So I stopped eating. Then I got tonsillitis and I couldn’t eat. I was being punished by the world.

And that was only over a spider. Shagging your best mates’ boyfriend is a locked-in-the-town-stocks, pelted-with-underwear kind of offence.

Who am I kidding? Shagging your best mates’ boyfriend who just so happens to be the devil is a far worse fate than underwear-pelting. How much power does the devil actually have? Clearly Stan has some power of hypnosis over me with those eyes of his.

Oh my good God he might make me sleep with the Borrell.

“How’s the head?”

“Holymotherfuckingmotherofchrist!”

The questioning voice startles me a little bit. I like to think I remain calm and composed despite this.

I jump back into my skin and try to work out where the hell the voice is coming from. My conscience? Jesus, I hope not, last thing I need is a fucking cricket or other irksome insect warbling away in my brain. And besides, I thought coke was the best anti-conscience medicine money could buy? It can’t fail me now.

I look all around.

Street Boy.

My mouth falls open. I become useless in every way.

“…Head?”

He’s smirking. It’s stunning. “Saw your fainting escapade earlier. Looked like you gave the window a fair old crack.”

“It was the radiator actually.” Somehow that’s important for me to say. What difference it makes I do not know, but it needs to be said. The fact I am saying anything is an achievement. The fact I have not dissolved is amazing. The fact that I am managing to look at his face and simultaneously restrain my hand from frantically trying to work my fly down is a miracle.

He tosses his hair back out of his face. It goes in slow motion. His every movement is a fucking promise. I just wish I didn’t see every muscle coiled in tension softening under the touch of someone else. Wish I didn’t see someone else’s hand brushing that petulant strand of hair out his eyes. Wish I didn’t see that smirk as he turned to face me, looking up at me in that window, eyes burning with malice for me and lust for someone else. Lips parted, slicked scarlet – a cruel, heartache of a red – for someone else.

“It’s thirty.”

“What?”

God his voice is crap. Mumbly little fucker. It’s music to my ears, such soft syllables, slurred beyond recognition. Each one reverberating around my veins, coursing like adrenalin.

“Thirty for an hour.”

My brain catches his drift.

I shrug, playing the nonchalance card I keep up my sleeve. My voice is nonplussed and steady, shoulders suspended in a half-shrug, eyes flicked away from him like I couldn’t care less. And the Best Actor goes to…

“Got no money.”

And you mean nothing to me, my resolution pipes up from the background. Lord knows where it came from. Was it on fucking holiday when Stan was on the prowl? Sunning itself in San Tropez? I bet it was wearing a Speedo too, smarmy little swine of a thing.

He shrugs and turns away.

“I’ve got some coke though!”

He turns back at my shout. Although it would probably be more truthful to describe it as a scream of shrill desperation. I really wish my brain would listen to me, especially when I give it a direct fucking order like ‘do not, under any circumstances, mention the coke from Didz, do not, you do not care about him, you do not at all. He is nothing to you. Absolutely nothing.’ I should have it shot for disobedience. From the eager grin on my face and wide joy of my eyes, I doubt I’d even miss it. I must look simple as hell.

His face furrows into the slightest of frowns. I want to run my fingers over his skin, stretch it back into place, keep it unscathed and preserved and that golden shade stretched endlessly, beautifully, out under my touch. His eyes cloud over in thought. The bitter taint of rage hasn’t left them, but it’s diluted with the sparkle of amusement that lilts the corners of his lips and makes mine want to touch against them all the more. I think I could sleep in the dream of them. He could trap me in the gap, the way they hang oh so slightly open, leaving that subtle darkness I can flit any words my charred heart desires into them. I could surrender myself into them, let him draw me in, lure me, drain all the life and soul out of me and keep me enchained in there forever. It looks so secret, furtive.

His eyes flick back up to me and I rapidly adopt my I-wasn’t-staring pose. Because he’d believe that. Yeah.

“I’m not going to fuck you for coke.”

My mouth drops open. I am auditioning for the lead role in Gormless and Gormlesser. I’m fucking gonna get it, too. Nothing’s ever fucking simple when you want it to be, and worse is the fact that it so obviously shows on my face. Because I'm crap at times, I really am.

And, of course, to add insult to injury, Street Boy is smirking at my open-mouthed fallen features. When rent boys start laughing at you, you know you’ve fallen down hard.

This is too much for one day.

I don’t need to ask why. It’s stitched in my face. Still, when he starts to speak I leap about a foot in the air. Just me being shocked out of my dumbfounded reverie. The jolt of arousal that stabs in my gut is a mere distraction. Not so frightening it hurts. At all.

“I can’t pay the rent with coke.”

“You could sell it.”

He snorts at me. I feel like a twelve year old.

He doesn’t elaborate, just lets me stew in my own embarrassment for a while till my face turns the shade of shame-casserole that it always does. Pink.

I attempt to stretch my voice back into shape. I have the sneaking suspicion that it would come out in a broken whine if I don’t do some serious realigning. Having practically drooled at him, shrieked at him and been (almost, maybe, in this light) on the verge of tears at the fucking-for-coke remark, a bit of a whine would clearly be the most off-putting thing about the whole encounter. I should’ve just run away when I had the chance.

Oh crap I forgot he’s seen me running. And fainting. I really don’t need any higher power to enforce penance for my sins. I’m pretty damn good at inflicting pain and humiliation upon myself.

I’m still wearing my scarf. Someone put me out of my misery. Please. A nice anvil to the head would do it. Or maybe the World’s Biggest Tuna being flown in from wherever the mighty tuna live. The ropes on it snapping and the thing falling from the cargo plane, right on top of me. Revenge for all those times I’ve ranted about my loathing for seafood. Then I’ll be the bloke that died, crushed by the World’s Biggest Tuna. And you just know they’ll have called it Gavin or something. And the good Doherty name will be disgraced as it is discovered that I leave only upset parents behind. No grandchildren for my mother. A large collection of videos of questionable content and legality. And I’ll die in a scarf with pink kittens on it with Greenland-love-bite swimming on my neck, the feel of Stan’s hands still sparking down my spine and a rent boy laughing at my untimely demise.

Some would call it justice. I would say it looks like a pretty appealing option at this moment in time.

“Why d’you turn around then?”

He shrugs.

Well then.

“D’you fancy a line or two then?”

Shrug.

I like his sulky little pout. It’s drugging me all on its own.

“There’s a pub round the corner, reputable dive. Fancy it?”

Shrug.

“Used up your word quota for the day?”

“No.”

“Well, you coming or what?”

Shrug.

I can see the headlines on the ten o clock news: Doherty’s Arousal Eaten By Irritation! Street Boy Found Beaten To Death With Shoe! Microscopic Pac Men gnawing their way through lust. My rationale returns in full force, voice blaring out through loud speakers in my brain. He’s a petulant little sod. Pretty, I’ll grant him that, but a fucking petulant little sod.

Glad I didn’t seriously consider paying good money for him. Much.

“Fine then.” I turn on my heel and walk away. Saving myself from further humiliation of any variety.

Before realising I’m going the wrong way. Shite.

And that he’s rudely interrupted my way home. Distracted me from my moping schedule. Which is not to be allowed. And, although my grand exit is somewhat tarnished by me having to do a U turn and walk back past his alleyway, I stick my nose in the air and retain my own brand of haughty dignity. I strut gloriously. Hips and angles ahoy. Naomi Campbell eat your heart out.

Halfway down the road, congratulating myself on a sterling exit (after initial difficulties) from the scene when I notice the clunking footsteps behind me.

I stop. Wait.

The footsteps keep coming, closer and closer. Anticipation prickles up my back but I shoo it away. It’s probably just my own mind, playing tricks on me, wishful thinking and all that jazz. Maybe a mugger. I did tempt fate earlier, after all. Could be repayment for the whole Stan, gross-betrayal, home-wrecker incident. Which is never to be repeated. Ever.

He’ll have my finger marks on his shoulders for days.

I turn.

Street Boy, slamming along in shoes that were two sizes too big for him. Bless. My heart steps into a silent movie and swoons like a good damsel in distress.

“You deigned to grace me with your presence after all?”

Shrug.

He flicks his hair over his eyes, somehow simultaneously squaring up to me and shrinking down inside his leather jacket. I get the idea if I slash it with a knife, it’d bleed. It looks like part of his soul.

“If I just keep walking, are you gonna shuffle alongside me until we get to the pub?”

“I don’t fucking shuffle.”

I shrug. Revenge is sweet. It seems to annoy him intensely. I can see him bristling. Just as he paws open his mouth and I hear his tongue about to speak, I walk off. Knowing he’ll follow. Praying he’ll follow.

***

I slide the pint over the table, trying to keep my eyes focused on the trail of condensation behind it. My hand is wobbling like a cheap jelly. I am fifteen again, trying to get into Sarah from History’s rather delectable black bra. However, I do not want this night to turn out like that one did. Although me wearing the fetching bra and underwear set and having her brother grabbing my arse like it was trying to get away from him was fun. I got a bit too attached though. Gave myself a glitter-glue tattoo of his name on my arm. Barry was never much of a poetic name.

I can’t quite bring myself to look at him. From the peripheries I can see him slouching round a cigarette opposite me. But I can’t look at him. I watch the condensation. It fascinates me. It’s water appearing from nowhere. Magic. I focus on the deep brown of the table and the way it doesn’t trigger memory’s of Stan-the-wankers’ eyes devouring me. Even the homely décor of the pub, the molten yellow of the curtains and chintzy tie-back-things. How in my mind it’s the opposite of Mary’s pastel-shaded house. How it’s the opposite of the blank white canvas of Jules’ roommates’ bedroom where Didz tied me to the bed. How I can imagine my soul and face growing older and numb with age in here, deadening each day of the grind down until it becomes so much of a dull routine you don’t feel anything anymore, can’t hear it, like your heartbeat.

I focus on anything except Street Boy.

The pub is hardly a place of resplendent luxury. It’s a fucking dive. And he’s a grimy rent boy. Dirt streaks across his chin, loiters on the curve of his neck, lurks in the shadows of stubble along his cheek. His face is all mismatched as well, I notice. Cruelly, some might say. The nose is perfect in the profile but wonky in places, sculpted wrongly from the front. The mouth’s ludicrously out of place in amongst the dirt and harsh lines and stubble. Too red, too full, too feminine. His eyes are alien to it all really. Shouldn’t be blue with olive skin and dark hair. Can’t be masculine – too intense for all that, too tell-tale with the emotions. Can’t be feminine – far too strong, furious, free from stirrings of empathy and pity whenever they happen to meet mine. He’s a mess. Scraggy uneven hair, grimy fingernails, ripped and tattered and torn in every respect.

He shines out here. Somewhere, riddled into the anger and venom, there’s something noble hiding. It’s grand. It’s royal.

And it’s scaring the fuck out of me, quite frankly. So I can’t look at him.

He doesn’t say thank you as his greedy hand wraps around the glass and takes a long drink. I watch his Adam’s apple slide up and down. All I can think is how it should be mine.

He catches me looking. I glance away. How old am I again? Five? That’s all right then. I’ll let him push me down, call me a girl and pull my hair. He tucks a stray strand behind his ear. I never thought I’d see the day when someone’s ear transfixes me. It had to be his, really. It’s so damn tiny. God, there’s not a mark on him, on that skin. And he’s got an arse that I could sit and meditate over. Out of everything on God’s green earth, that has to be the closest thing to a path to enlightenment, surely. And he’s got chew-toy ears. I just want to bite them. Grr.

For the moment, I decide to take affirmative action. Drink like man. Roar like lion. Float like butterfly. Sting like bee.

Maybe I shouldn’t have excused myself to the toilet and made a hefty dint in Didz’s ‘gift’ to me before buying us a drink.

Still, throw your regrets over your shoulder like a regimental soldier.

Street Boy’s finishes half his pint in one go. This display of Neanderthal behaviour shouldn’t impress me or have me quaking in my shoes.

My fingers shake as I lower my glass down. I get so twitchy when I'm nervous. Especially when nerves go beyond the bound of nerves, when they mangle together with the overwhelming restraint required to keep myself from clamping my arms round his neck, declaring my undying love and pointing the way to the nearest registry office. (Half a mile down the road. One thirty on the bus. Bargain.)

I need to say anything that isn’t marry me, can I touch your nose or please please please please let me shag you.

“So what’s your name then?”

He shrugs.

“How d’you go about pronouncing that then?”

That gets a smile out of him. A genuine one. No malice or spite or twisted amusement. It’s wide and spreads into his eyes and lights up his whole face and I find myself stupidly returning it, stupidly stupidly pleased that he’s bestowing something like that on me. My mind clicks and flashes with the sound of photographs and Polaroids being taken and stored for less honourable purposes later on. At home. Alone. Oh, come on. Like the rest of the world wouldn’t.

He snatches back the smile and resumes his usual scowl. “Don’t need a name. Don’t get paid to have a name.”

“Yeah, I don’t either but everyone’s got one.”

“So?”

“What’s yours?”

Shrug.

I remind myself that he is not a performing sea lion. Therefore dangling a fish over his nose will not make him clap his hands, smile at me again, and leave him fishy but ridiculously grateful.

He is a money-grabbing coke-whore though. Maybe Didz’s coke would work.

Even if he won’t let me fuck him for it.

Street Boy grunts something at me. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of asking for a translation. He takes another drink of the pint. Avoids my gaze. A giddy feeling of joy rises up at me at irking him. I am winning. Not sure what game it is we’re playing, but I’m winning. He wants me to answer, but is too proud to admit it. I am Zeus. I will send my small lightning bolts of victory down into his bleak world and wear him down by attrition. Before I wear him out by fucking him senseless.

“Wassurename?”

“Pete.”

“Oh.”

The bored expression on his face takes the wind out of my sails slightly. He’s contemplating the curtains. My charm must be more exciting than chintz. I may not be mustard-coloured or flower patterned but that’s something I’m willing to negotiate if it’ll get his attention back on me.

It’s damned unfair that I can get Didz and Anthony and every other fool on the planet I don’t want (much) in any way to get my trousers off before I’ve even muttered so much as one come-on or fluttered my eyelashes like the little tart I apparently am and yet this one, this fucking street creature, won’t even acknowledge my presence properly.

Am not one to be so easily deterred though.

I am either one of the brave cavaliers who would go charging into battle, musket and bayonet blazing, ready to fight for kingdom and country and all that is free and dignified.

Or I am one of those fat women on daytime talk shows who cry about their husband running off with their skinny, bikini-model cousin, who can’t fathom out why oh why they ever left them.

I need to say something to tempt some words out those jewellery box lips. Didz’s voice leaves me spluttering and condemned, gloriously condemned, to obedience. Stan’s voice tricks me into wanting him, wanting to mark his skin and keep some piece of it as mine. Street Boy’s voice? Makes me want a hearing aid.

Hearing aids can’t start to turn me on: that’s just wrong.

I say the first thing that comes into my head. The only thing, really, that was ever going to come out my mouth. The words twist round my tongue and stomach alike: “So, I saw you with your friend today. Looked like you were having fun.”

“Who d’you mean?”

“The bloke you were with when I fainted.”

A devil smile is my reward this time. He has the air of a snake charmer about him. I get the impression that I have walked slap bang into whatever trap he was laying. Followed all his breadcrumbs.

“You not enjoy spying on me so much today then?”

“Huh?”

My mind is blank. I am meditating (not thinking about his arse, just not) and praying to the Lord. And any other God or god I have taken the name of in vain in the past. I am repenting for all my sins.

Street Boy’s eyes flash like a dagger in the dark. “I see you watching me out your window. Every day. D’you not enjoy it as much today?”

Oh Holy Fuck Batman.

“No, I, er, I, er, er, I, no, what?”

Where are the four horsemen of the apocalypse when you need them? Jesus reappearing on earth? The sun imploding in a fiery ball of hydrogen? Moses bringing us another commandment? Spontaneous combustion? I’ll take spontaneous combustion.

Nowhere, that’s where. This is why I have no faith. When I die (probably soon and of stress, the way this day is playing out) and I get summoned up to the pearly gates and they ask me if I have faith, I’ll tell ‘em no, because at moments – like this – when I so desperately needed a divine intervention, I was left alone in the universe. And I was allowed to stutter utter crap. And look like a blithering idiot. In front of a rent boy.

Maybe I won’t mention the rent boy part. It might make me look bad in their eyes. And them wanting to cast me into eternal damnation would dampen my point about the failure of faith somewhat.

“Yeah, I did have fun actually. Thanks for asking.” He smirks.

Must wipe smile off his face. I have to. Even if I have to slap him, it has to go.

Thankfully, I can be nice and catty when I want to be. I clear my throat. “Must be unusual in your line of work. Mostly fat old men who can’t get any anywhere else who line up for you, isn’t it?”

I smile sweetly. It masks my inner demon who is grinning and urging me to dance on the table top, stripping off clothing and laughing viciously into his shocked, angry, ashamed face.

Freud would have something interesting but painstakingly obvious to say about the fact that my inner demon has curly black hair.

Street Boy looks like he’s about to break the pint glass over my head. And then kick me. Hard. Lots of times. Until I’m bleeding and begging for mercy. His eyes swirl.

Yes, that’s exactly what he’s about to do.

I flick rapidly through my mind for something to salvage the situation; “How about that coke then?”

Shrug.

Oh I could just kill him and not feel any guilt whatsoever.

No one would miss him.

This thought settles in my brain, nestling its head down into its feathers on a withered old branch of nerve. Meaning sinks in.

No one would miss him either. The blokes would find someone else – they probably don’t know his real name either. Lord knows where he lives, but it doesn’t look like anyone cares enough about him to look after him. Even his friend didn’t care enough to whisk him away from the streets and broken glass and keep him in a life of carefree luxury he deserves. No one would miss him. No one would miss me either. Someone else would type up the stuff I do. My landlord wouldn’t even notice I’d gone until the rent was due. Didz would probably just think he’d imagined me all along.

I’d miss him. I want more than anything for him to miss me.

“This line coming or what, or do I have to fucking grow the fucking plant my fucking self?”

The sneer on his face.

Scrap that thought. I could kill him and feel no guilt what-so-ever. If I worked out a bit I could do it with my thighs. Oh yes…

***

“What are you?”

I smile modestly at the amazed confusion in his voice. I take it to be amazed confusion anyway; with his bloody mumble it could be anything on the adjective spectrum, but those bring me the most satisfaction. It’s nice to be satisfied. Prefer to be satisfied in the trousers-round-ankles sense of the word, but considering the highly volatile nature of Street Boy, I think vocabulary satisfaction is the best I can hope for.

“And what, pray tell, do you mean by that?”

“I mean-”

He breaks off to down another scotch. I’ve honestly never seen anyone hurl as much alcohol down his neck as he has. And live. Let alone be still talking. Especially not when combined with the size of the lines he hoovered up. They were wide as the ones down the middle of the road. And most especially of all, considering his short stature, it’s fucking amazing he isn’t comatose by now.

“- What the fuck are you?”

Now I’m confused.

“I’m Pete Doherty. Although if Didz has anything to do with it, I’m Dirty Little Tart…”

I let my voice trail off. I’m quite drunk. I found courage (and booze) and summoned it and finally ended up sat next to him, his body heat stinging the air as it gasps between us.

He smells of something I’ve never even dreamt of. No aftershave, no cheap perfume of cigarettes or coffee or shampoo or liquor. It creeps into my lungs when I’m not looking and keeps taking my breath away when I breathe in too long or too hard.

“I know you’re fucking Pete Doherty…”

He lights up another cigarette. My cigarette. Share and share alike, I suppose. Although he’s yet to give me anything beyond his little half-formed mumbles. I could close my eyes and imagine that voice humming round my head until the sky fell down over my head. I could imagine it echoing through the loose cotton of bed sheets as he lay next to me. I could imagine the vibration of it through my head as I woke up, my head on his stomach, him whispering all the secrets and hells his eyes told to me.

I suppose it doesn’t need to be said that he has completely taken possession of my brain. And heart. And all other vital organs. And several non-vital ones. Who needs a pancreas anyway? And my liver’s well and truly gone to the dogs by now.

My ears prick up in that strange way they do to remind me I’m supposed to be listening to something. I could’ve been a tracker dog in a previous life. Although I reckon I was Catherine of Aragon. She was a plump lady but charming nonetheless. Could rock a corset with the best of ‘em, a trait that Didz seems eager to believe I have carried with me into the present time.

Street Boy is still talking; “…what I mean is, what are you?”

How the hell to answer when I do not know the question?

“Well, what are you?”

Ah ha, squirm out of that logic. Pete Doherty: Brilliant on demand. Ho yes.

I smile drunkenly to myself. My eyelids are incredibly heavy. They are purple-tainted safety curtains coming down on the theatre that’s playing out in my eyes, convex and drenched in lust. The Beauty of Street Boy. I catch him staring at them, at the surface, seeing his own reflection, watching the words leave his mouth before the sounds fill the air. I don’t kid myself that he’s trying to look at anything beyond his reflection. If I looked like him I’d have a bloody big mirror above my bed and a really sore right hand. The things we endure for love…

Street Boy’s thinking. I can tell because he’s pursed his lips, let his tongue slide out and wet them, leave them glistening with promise, and his eyes are focussed on his own little world halfway between the dirty floor and the ceiling, the landscape known only in his mind. He gets little furrows along his upper lip and matching ones between his eyebrows when he thinks. So slight you can’t notice them from afar, like the small beauty spots that fleck his cheek. They’re flaws on that otherwise perfect face, but it can’t be any other way. The darkness of the spots is where some of his soul leaks out, slowly, seething onto his skin, too small a release to relieve the pressure that makes every muscle knot into anger.

I could kiss them into submission.

He speaks, finally, his eyes still focused on nothing. “I dunno.”

Well, that was profound. Street Boy – the great philosopher of our time.

I wait. Patiently. My fingers rap on the table top. But I’m waiting patiently.

“I mean, ‘course I know, I know what I look like to you,”

You look like someone bound up all the anger I’m too scared to have and held it down and forced it into the most glorious casing I’ve ever laid eyes on. You look like you could have the world laid down at your feet and just turn and walk away, while I would just put my grubby hands all over it. You look like you’ve got the potential to kill me with your bare hands or with a few carefully chosen words; you look like you know it too.

Mostly you look like you’re trying so hard to forget yourself, you can’t even remember who you’re trying to forget anymore.

“A fucking rent boy,”

He spits the words out, disgust ladled out heavily,

“With a fucking drinking problem,”

Come to think of it, he has drunk a lot,

“Who’s a fucking angry fucker…”

Well, that part’s bang on at least.

He lights up another cigarette. I’ve never seen such malice injected into such a seemingly innocent gesture. There’s my lighter, lying in invitation, out on the table, but he ignores it. Matches produced from his pocket, strikes one like he’s daring the splinter of wood to snap, and after he lights the end he watches the match burn down, staring at it like it’s dancing just for him in some deadly striptease of the soul.

His voice drops even lower, becomes softer and raw. His eyes focus straight on mine.

“S’just… what can you do? When you’re this?”

“’When you’re this?’”

Part of me doesn’t even want to ask that in case it breaks whatever spell he’s under. The spell that makes him speak and not shrug. Everything about him is turning into spirals. The smoke from his lungs is curling up into the air, his hair is in coils, his words are streaking the skin behind my eyelids in red, spiralling round in ribbons, his eyes are whorls, violet and bottle green and blue.

I wonder if I could find a rogue vicar wandering around who’d agree to marry us. That’d be a far more practical application of the clergy in modern times. I have gin and coke to save my soul.

You can get married at seventeen, right?

Or do I have to go to Scotland? Gretna Green? Kilts! I’d look dashing. Street Boy would look… short, I suppose. But tasty. I could serve him up on a bed of lettuce with a balsamic vinegar dressing drizzled lightly over the top, garnished with whole cherry tomatoes and a sprig of parsley. Fell asleep last week to the sounds of Ready Steady Cook. Left me a changed man.

“When I’m this… I mean…”

I would breathe a sigh of relief if breathing was still on my list of priorities. It isn’t. My mind has calmed down slightly – maybe – but is now on autopilot. It moves like the background off Scooby Doo, where they recycle the scenery so the same picture comes up every forty seconds. Only mine keeps returning to Street Boy, pointing out the beautifully obvious: You are talking to Street Boy. You, are talking, to Street Boy. You, YOU, are talking to Street Boy.

Occasionally it comes back with the old you slept with Stan you idiot/Look what you’ve done, Jules will be hurt to the tune of Staying Alive but I ignore that. Despite being irritatingly catchy.

I didn’t ruin it with my wrecking-ball mouth: he speaks again –

“…Haven’t got anyone to answer to, no one to look out for… M’just… trapped by m’own skin, s’pose… But s’alright… Can’t always meet my eye when I looking in the fucking mirror, but.” He cuts himself off sharply and glances away from me, afraid he’s said too much.

I let my lids fall heavier and plaster a drunken smile on my face. He looks relieved. He pours another drink out for us both. I bought the bottle. Set me back a fair few quid. That’s gonna haunt me tomorrow, make no mistake. But anything to keep him here, anything.

“Trapped?”

Since when did I become the World’s Slowest Echo? Why can’t I stop repeating what he’s said back to me in a questioning tone about a minute after he’s said it and half a minute after my brain has dissected it enough to make sense of the letters all tangling round each other in a sweaty embrace?

His eyes meet mine again. He looks so much older than me, all of a sudden. Looks like he’s seen every corner of this world and it’s worn him out. Probably has seen every street corner. Probably has worn him out, too. What the fuck is he doing here with me? I've got nothing to offer. Nothing.

Those lips part, just slightly, about to say something, his eyes changing from the blank blue to having a faint light dancing in their depths. I instruct my brain to pay rapt attention to whatever he’s about to say and stop being so damn envious of his ears.

“Pete –”

I’m away with the fairies at hearing him say my name like that, slightly shy, reluctant. Beginning to understand the fuss my sister made when she went to that Take That concert and Gary Barlow winked at her.

Must not look too eager, must not look too eager…

I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the window. I look like the bastard child of a possum and a guppy. On E. Actually, considering the size of my eyes and the perfect O of my mouth formed in anticipation, I resemble the bastard child of a blow up doll and a possum and a guppy. On E.

If ya want my body, and you think I’m sexy, c’mon sugar, let me know… Oh, so true right now…

Street Boy’s mouth collapses into an awkward half-smile and he looks away. I breathe again.

Silence descends.

“Drink?”

I nod. Enthusiastically. Yes. More liquor. Yes!

He looks at me expectantly.

“What?”

He snorts: “Think I’m buying?”

“Not for a second, love, not even for a second.”


	4. Chapter 4

Where am I?

Oh God please don’t let me be on that bench again. Waking up twice with no trousers on, lying on a park bench, is definitely enough for one lifetime. It was the mystery as to how whoever managed to get my trousers off kept my shoes on that troubled me most. The last time I woke up someone had painted my face. Like a cat. I didn’t find out till I got to work. A lot of people pointed and laughed.

But where am I?

The question could be easily answered by opening my eyes. But, if the way my head is pounding – pounding – behind the safety of my eyelids, then letting the day flood in will bring only. Pain. I don’t like pain.

I try to continue the mental cataloguing of my current situation. Without moving.

I’m underneath something – covers or a coat, I reckon – lying on something soft – so not a bench – but not bony and lumpy – so not a human – and I’m not fully clothed. Oh. I hope that happened after I got to wherever I ended up rather than before. I like my latest local. I don’t want a repeat of what happened at the last one. The blessed Queen’s Head. I’ll never look any of the regulars in the eye again. It was all their fault, putting the jukebox on and letting me stand on the table. Letting me demand the barmaid’s lipstick, kick off my shoes, pick up a bottle of ketchup (one must always have a microphone) and start on the rest of my clothing. And then they had the cheek to bar me.

Prise my eyes open. White, blinding white…

Slam them shut again. Groan loudly.

Take a deep cleansing breath. Breathe out. Man alive, I’ve got morning breath that could be used as a horse tranquiliser. I need fresh air. Something to clear the cobwebs out my head and remind me what the hell happened.

“Ah, you’re awake…”

If I had any energy left whatsoever I would leap out of my skin. Thankfully, alcohol in unknown but presumably large quantities is preventing such quick responses.

Am I dead?

I could be. Loud voice booming down at me, surrounded by blinding white clouds. Hell, I never thought I’d end up in heaven. That’s a turn up for the books.

I flail a bit. Get disappointed when my hand comes into contact with something undeniably cotton. Not a cloud. Not in heaven. But that also means I am not dead. Still, also means I am probably condemned to eternal damnation. Still. Bet there’s leather in hell. And Jimi Hendrix will be there, playing guitar and surfing on the lake of fire. Me and Kevin Keegan (that perm condemned him alone) can throw odd socks (only pairs allowed in heaven) and bagels (no one likes bagels) at him. Ooh, if the Biblical people get their way Elton John will be in hell too. We can go shopping. If money’s an emblem of greed and therefore a part of sin, surely that means in hell you get to keep your bank balance? Bonzer.

The voice is met with stirrings of recognition in my mind. I flail a bit more frantically beneath the covers. A mighty hand reaches down from somewhere and peels them back slowly. A face swims into focus. Scruffy hair, amused eyes… Not God then. He must have a name, surely? He smiles at me. How nice, to be woken up by someone who clearly cares – oh, no, wait, he’s laughing at me. There must be something amusing about my appearance.

“Have I got… a cat… on my face… again?”

He wrinkles his nose in a frown.

“Why would you have a cat on your face?”

I recognise that growl. Recognise the effect it has on my nervous system anyway. Brown eyes, brown hair, funny but appealing mouth…

“Didz!”

“Yeah?”

“You’re Didz!”

He grins. It’s the happiest I’ve ever seen him. “Yeah!”

Oh that is definitely as much mental exertion as I can handle today.

If Didz was God then the afterlife would be a very different prospect. Heaven would be shag pile carpets and the sun would be a disco ball. Didz was born in the wrong decade, see. He’s far too sleazy for these modern times. He was born to have a handlebar moustache, wear an open-to-the-navel shirt and dance the night away. I might as well be shagging one of the BeeGees.

“Come on, we’re already two hours late.”

Late for what? Panic seeps into my mind. It’s not welcome. Not in the slightest.

“Work! Don’t worry, I told them we were both called away on a business meeting. Well, that I was called away and you tagged along to help carry folders and stuff. That is what you do, isn’t it?”

I could smother him with a pillow.

I glare at him. He remains smiling: “Yeah, all got rather elaborate at one point, had to get Kate on the other line to pretend to be an executive in the other company. I tell you, that girl’s sharp as a trowel when she needs to be, sharp as a trowel.”

Kate? Kate? I sit up. This is worth sitting up for. “You brought me back here when she was here?”

“Well, I didn’t bring you back –”

“Just, save it, Didz, save the excuses. I know my place. I’ll just get dressed and scuttle out of here so you don’t have to be ashamed of me anymore. Go back to Kate!”

I get melodramatic when I’m hungover. I really wish I didn’t. It’s bad enough having the rifle crack of guilt duelling with the fanfare of triumph in my skull, without having the cavalry (dignity battalion) raging on in defence of my pride. I stand up shakily, sheet wrapped round me, searching for my clothes.

“I didn’t bring you back here.” That stops me in my tracks.

“Huh? Well, I didn’t just float over here of my own accord, did I, Didz?” My, I can be snappy. I didn’t realise I could produce that tone of voice. It sounds like drumsticks on a snare.

“Well, you didn’t float. You got a cab. Rang our doorbell at three this morning. Kate was not happy. And I had to pay for it. And you had sick on your shoes.”

He paints such a bleak picture.

I shut my mouth and decide to curl myself back up into the sofa and take full advantage of Didz’s hospitality.

“Didz…”

“Yeah?”

“Did we have sex last night?”

He laughs. I hope that’s a no.

“Nah, you were so out of it you curled up in the coat cupboard floor and fell asleep. Had to pick you up and dump you on the sofa. Almost ended up out here myself.”

His mouth moves in a way I’m not entirely sure is possible with the standard configuration of facial muscles, but I take to signify distress.

“Kate can be… demanding… when she’s not best pleased. Gets crabby when she’s woken up.” His hand starts creeping up my leg. “But she’s gone now though…”

I extend my arm to push him off. “Didz, c’mon, we’ve got work, remember…”

What’s that on my arm?

Didz is still trying to get his hand in my boxers. It’s too early for all this. I try to get my eyes to focus but they’re not playing the game.

“Didz, did you write on me…”

He shakes his head and smiles salaciously.

“What the fuck’s the black smudge on my arm then?”

Didz diverts some of his attention away from my boxers and looks at the black blot on my otherwise ridiculously white skin.

“Hey, cool tattoo. Didn’t know you had that.”

“What?”

“Your arm.”

“What?”

“The tattoo?”

“I don’t have a tattoo.”

Didz smiles. I’m beginning to trust him less and less.

He picks up my not-arm and shoves it at me. I gape at it. It isn’t my arm. I don’t have a tattoo. Didz runs his finger over it.

“Didn’t know you were such a fan of fish…”

What in the name of Holy Moses is he blathering on about now?

“Fish?”

“Yeah, your tattoo… It’s a fish.” He smiles down at me affectionately. Like one of the bullies at school being deceptively innocent to the new boy whose mum packed his lunch and combed his hair for him.

“Fish?”

Didz snickers.

“It’s a disgruntled fish.”

I look down at my arm.

I look up at Didz.

I look down at my arm.

I look up at Didz.

Why isn’t the Universe providing me with answers!?

I look down at my arm.

Oh no. Street Boy.

Didz smiles and kneels down at the side of the sofa. All he needs is a lamp and one of those little hats and he’ll be a regular Florence Nightingale. Or one of those PVC naughty nurse uniforms.

“Why a fish then?”

I look down at my not-arm. It’s definitely real. I remember the scratch of the needle. I remember the kebab quest. Finding no kebab. Finding Winking Willy’s Fish and Chips. Talking to my chips. Apologising for being about to eat them.

Then I proclaimed to the owner that they were the best chips I’d ever had. That I was in love. Saying I would get Winking Willy’s tattooed on my chest above my heart. Then wandering down the street and being drawn in by a neon shining light. Which was a tattoo parlour. It all seemed like such a good idea at the time. Street Boy even pried the tenner I gave him out of his hand to make sure I could get it.

All things considered, in comparison to having Winking Willy’s emblazoned on my chest, a disgruntled fish on the arm is not so bad.

He had this look in his eyes when I was looking away from the needle and trying to ignore the cackles of the tattoo lady as she watched me hiss and wince. This smile loitering behind the snarl. Close to happiness as he ever gets. He let me squeeze his hand. Laughed at me. Let me touch him. Long fingers, he’s got. I think I damn near crushed his hand at one point. He didn’t take his eyes away. Looked at me like I might be good for something after all.

Then we went back to the pub. Bertha not impressed. Trying to clear up. I might have said something, climbed on a table. Got into my declaring mode, which is always dangerous. Might have said something vaguely along the lines of Street Boy being a perfect vision of beauty, despite being dwarfish, and having a bit of a funny nose from the front, and needing a bath. But having a perfect arse to compensate. I might have, possibly, cleared my throat and proposed to him, only to fall off the table. Getting down on one knee at altitude is hard.

I really hope I only dreamt that bit.

I fell off the table. I’m crap as a human.

How can I explain having a fish tattooed on my arm? It’s not even a pirate-chic mermaid. Can’t even justify my overwhelming desire to own a tri-cornered hat and some nice gold hoop earrings with it. I just look like bloody Captain Birdseye.

My mind draws a giant blank. It’s like outer space in there.

It does, however, come up with an ingenious pun and point out that there’s something a little bit fishy (Ha. Ha.) about the picture. Something not quite right… Well, obviously there’s something not quite right about it. I have a fish on my arm, curled round like it’s about to belly flop back into the ocean of pale skin on my chest or something. And it’s in bloody green ink. With a ridiculous red pouting mouth on it.

This clicks in my brain. I asked the tattoo lady to give me a fish – in green – with Street Boy’s pout on it – in red. To ‘commemorate the two greatest parts of the greatest night of my life.’

Street Boy was laughing so hard he almost looked ridiculous.

I don’t even like fish. I’ll just have to use my feminine mystique and just say it is a tattoo to commemorate the greatest night of my life. Which is true. Joy, rapture, humiliation, vomit and getting threatened with a flick knife. All in a day’s work, really.

***

Julian corners me at break. Literally. I am leaning over the shredder, minding my own business, happily shredding important documents and the elaborate doodle I did of a mythical beast (head of bird, body and claw-things of lobster, wings of butterfly – but not symmetrical, work that one out… – tail of whale and legs of foal). I am happy. I am smug. I am smiling like the Cheshire Cat that got the cream and all the finest muffins and breakfast treats in all the land. I am humming something to myself that I realise is another of Judy Garland’s back catalogue. I am doing all of the aforementioned when he appears. Like some shining vision of guilt. A strange concoction wells up inside me. Guilt is in there, definitely, but there’s something else. Potential to hurt. Thrill of power. God, I think I stole some of Street Boy’s soul last night.

Shrugging off the dizzy feeling of power isn’t easy, but I do my best.

“You coming for a break man?”

He doesn’t look as if he knows he is speaking to the scum of the earth. There’s no hints of warning or blaring rage in his brown eyes. Nothing beyond the usual easiness to be found in there.

I find my head shaking itself. Violently. As if I want to snap my vertebrae and save anyone else the trouble. I really do abuse my poor vertebrae. I should give them to an envious jellyfish, make his day a little brighter and save myself from spinal pain. I mutter something, some excuse of an excuse, and turn away, heading to the stairs, heading to the double doors floors below, heading for freedom. Everything’s claustrophobic this morning. Ten times more than usual.

My head’s in some strange limbo. It has been since I left Didz’s flat, got a bus to work, snuck out whilst he was swearing loudly at his toaster and jamming a knife into it. Whilst wearing his trademark black boxers and some slippers. Purple slippers with bunny heads on them, with ears and everything and little fluffy tails at the back. I would’ve shouted a warning about possible electrocution but my ploy for sneaking off would’ve been foiled, and my tender wrists weren’t up for any more of Didz’s antics.

Except they were. It was everything else that couldn’t take it. If I heard him call me a tart, it’d be the truth, wouldn’t it? It’s what I am. Only I don’t think I could take the confirmation, not aloud, the words singing round my skull. It’d be like a branding, burned into my mind.

Like the tattoo.

That’s another thing. My chest keeps lurching between the twisting hand of guilt and the pure happiness of last night. In fact, I think it deserves capitalisation. It’s been a Long While since I was last able to exercise my Full Grammatical Rights and make Proper Nouns out of Innocent Words. Last Night. Last Night where Street Boy spoke to me, laughed with me, traded tales with me. Well, more listened when I spoke, interrupting with the odd insult now and again, laughing at me when I spilled beer all down myself and listened to me slowly but surely putting the world to rights, desperately talking about anything but myself.

It was safe, see, talking about everything but me.

If I told him about me, he’d turn and run. I knew it for a fact then, and I know it even more in the cold light of day. My soul’s a bit of a featherweight. All things considered. I lose my heart pretty easily to anyone and everything for fifteen minutes, then flirt on over to the next. I don’t get that angry; don’t get that involved with anything. It’s alright, like that, doing things by halves. Getting drunk after three rounds, never really risking too much. S’alright. Safe.

Street Boy’s the kind to stand on top of a building, right on the very edge, two-thirds gone whiskey clutched loosely in his hand, daring the wind to finish him off, daring something to tear him down. Glowering at everything. I love his glower. It burns right through me. And he wouldn’t care if he did fall off, either. He’s got scars on his wrists from things I’m too scared of. He said something about it last night, made a vague elusion to it in one of those typically cut-off sentences of his. It’s not the destruction; it’s not wanton or wanting to destroy. It’s the potential. His eyes had sparked then, his whole skin volting into life in a way that made me suddenly afraid, wary of his touch. It’s the potential that gets you high. It’s the potential that keeps you free.

And I’d slurred a drunken insult about his hair, an educated sheep and the Eurovision Song Contest. It made sense at the time. But bringing Terry Wogan into proceedings doesn’t half put a dampener on any possible c’mon, you know you wanna shag me feelings you might be stirring up.

I’m not enough for him. I don’t know what dreams I had in my head about snaring him, the way of keeping him that didn’t involve me selling my soul to Gary. He still has Didz’s car. He’s a human magpie. Loves anything shiny and stolen. He’d get a bloody big kick out of owning my soul. I must remember that, next time I’m strapped for cash. I’d dread to see what he did to it. Poor thing’s scraggy enough already. But short of buying him, there’s no way I can get him. Purely because I don’t have enough.

He strikes me as the kind to do anything with his body and completely disengage his soul. Two separate beings trapped in the same body. He let the soul flash out at times Last Night, but never too much. Every time the words found themselves moving anywhere near close enough to some vague semblance of truth and, you know, genuine meaning, he cut himself off and scowled at me, like I had tied him to a chair and was shining bright lights in his face.

Come to think of it, that’s not such a bad idea. If he’s tied to a chair, he can’t go anywhere. Oh the possibilities…

It’s times like this I feel I should be placed on some sort of police surveillance list for the good of humanity. I’m not saying I’d ever act on the impulse. But you never know. In my darkest hour I have been known to do many a deed that would be frowned upon.

I don’t know quite where I’m going. Walking alright, my hangover kicking in full-force in the surprisingly cold day, but I’m not paying attention. I think I’m walking in a big circle around the building. Which is a bit pointless. Especially considering this is supposed to be a cigarette break and I haven’t had one yet. It’s one of those catch-22 times: the last thing you want on God’s green earth is a cigarette because you feel like you smoked enough for the whole western hemisphere last night. But if you don’t have one you’ll be drowning in your own phlegm by eleven thirty. Whoever made smoking cool (here’s looking at you, James Dean) clearly didn’t wind themselves into paradoxes such as this.

It’s all Street Boy’s fault. He chain-smokes like his lungs deserve to die. And I tried to keep up. I don’t know how he does it. I couldn’t wake up feeling like this every day. And he’s so short.

He does have ridiculously shiny hair, though, to conceal those chew-toy ears.

This building’s a lot bigger and greyer than most people give it credit for. I’m almost grateful to work inside it so I don’t have to see the monstrosity that it is from the outside. The architect definitely needs shooting.

My heart gives a sickening little lurch as I turn the corner. The street visible from my office. The back alley I’m fast approaching. No way Street Boy will be there though, no way. He’ll be in a coma in whatever it is that he sleeps in if he has any sense. I wonder if he sleeps in that dumpster? I could climb in with him, keep him warm, cuddle amongst the bin bags… No. Must work. Serve function. Get mind off Street Boy who proved himself to be angry, petulant and not especially friendly last night. Sorry, Last Night.

Who gives a fuck about a bit of a short temper and polite conversation and stuff when he looks like that, though? And petulant only makes him pouty. And I like it when he gets pouty.

Instead of strolling round the building, head in a daze, it might’ve made more sense for me to spend my break alone, in the toilets, running on memories of Last Night.

I defy anyone to not like it when he gets pouty.

My heart gives a decidedly more acrobatic lurch as I near the alleyway. It’s twirling round on itself, getting in a stranglehold, and there’s an actual physical pain in my chest. I could be having a heart attack. I carry on walking. Never let it be said that I’m not a little trooper.

Do I go for disinterested cool and not look down the alleyway? It would smack of desperation, if by some bizarre chance he is there and sees me gawping at him like an over-zealous guppy with coke that he just so happens to have adopted as a pet when –

I have to look. It’ll kill me otherwise. I hate not knowing. Anything. The lottery numbers. I don’t play the lottery. But I have to know. Just in case.

My head turns of its own accord. Nothing. No one there. I breathe a sigh of relief/disappointment and go merrily on my way.

Hang on.

My head whips back round. I may sue myself for whiplash.

There’s someone there. Something just knocked one of the dustbin bags over. Let it be a cat. A racoon. We don’t have racoons in England. No koala trees for them. Koalas and koala trees. Why would a racoon eat a koala tree? Koalas eat koala trees. That’d just be stupid. Nonsensical. Pandas eat eucalyptus and racoons eat? Racoons aren’t bears, are they? Are they those birds? Big flapping beaks, dive into water? Like seagulls but American? Maybe it’s a seagull. Yeah, a seagull. Attacking a koala.

For some reason I always imagine seagulls to have toupees. Brown/ginger ones. They look like they could be opera singers. Everyone knows opera singers have to wear toupees.

I take three tentative steps into the alleyway. Peer round the black fire escape. There’s definitely something there. I creep closer. My mind is reminding me that this is a Bad Idea. I don’t care.

My heart skips a step. Combines about thirty heart beats together in one almighty pulse. Feel like I’ve just been kicked in the chest.

Street Boy.

Street Boy with his friend.

Street Boy kissing the friend, out of sight from the rest of the world but still perfectly visible from my window.

Kissing him hard up against the wall, his friend’s hand tangled into his hair. Where it has no fucking right to be. Street Boy pulling back, dropping to his knees. Where he has no fucking right to be. His friend’s mouth hanging open, gaping, gasping pleas, Street Boy hesitating. Waiting. Glancing up at the window. The sunlight’s ice cold glare bounces back off it. He can’t tell if he’s got a captive audience or not. He turns back, his friend’s insistent hands on his shoulders. The zip slides down. The rasping of metal drowns out everything. The rage burning in my ears. The traffic. Everything.

Everything but the groan of utter pleasure that comes from his friend’s treasonous mouth.

***

 

Five hours later, loitering in the shadows like something out of film noir, smoke curling out beneath shaking fingertips.

I’ve got nothing left, really, nothing. Got nowhere to go now work’s done. Five p.m. and darkness descends and there’s an empty flat waiting for me. So I’m leaning up against a lamppost, last cigarette of the pack, not thinking about anything. Or trying not to think about anything at any rate.

Because no matter what I think about it all comes back to him.

How it was just a joke to him. A one-night stand of entertainment, free booze and someone to laugh at. How he must’ve, must’ve, known it was something more for me. Having someone who trades off their body for anyone deny you that and offer up some of their soul instead is like reaching for the stars and getting the moon. Or getting a Happy Meal toy instead of chips with your burger. But I like the moon analogy. Misery always makes me moony and wistful. And I think I look pretty when I get a bit moony and wistful.

I don’t understand why anyone would do that. Play a role that they aren’t designed to fit. Let that smile spread, shaking, shy, underused, across their face. A smile they didn’t get paid for. Don’t understand what was in it for him.

Clawing his way out the shadows of night, Street Boy coughs.

Great, now he’ll think that as well as spying on him, I’m actually stalking him as well. Brilliant. I’m not loitering with any intent. For once. Just standing here… wishing, I suppose.

His hair’s all mussed up and those lips that were slowly parting for mine last night are smudged like lipstick against the bleached white cotton pillow of his skin. There’s a purple bruise from someone else’s mouth on his neck. His black t-shirt’s ripped up the side. He’s the morning-after-the-night before walking up to me. Only he was never mine the night before and he was only too fucking happy to be someone else’s the morning after.

The golden slither of skin writhing over his hipbone is mocking me.

That hipbone could cut glass.

Great. Now I’m salivating.

Why is the human body so designed that the only way of removing the effects of intense salivation is by slurping loudly? Bet lobsters don’t slurp and look ridiculous to a whole new degree in front of the rent boy lobsters.

I want to say something cutting and watch it flash through him. I want to scathe my nails down that perfectly flawed face of his and deface it in punishment for all the things he doesn’t know he’s done wrong. I want to scream in his face. I would, probably, if I didn’t want him to know he’s got under my skin. Got embedded in there. Practically bloody nested down for the winter inside my mind.

Do need to say something though.

He stands there, looking at me. It’s too dark to see if I can imagine an apology in his eyes.

“Alright?”

Shrug.

“Back to that again, are we?”

Shrug.

“I’m only being bloody polite, no need to be so fucking… fucking… fucking… fuh…”

There was an end to the sentence in my mind, honest. But he chose that moment to rest his hand through his belt loop and make his black t shirt ride up a bit further and reveal more than just that slither of skin. A line all the way up his chest and a knot of hair dancing down to his undone belt.

He snorts: “’Fuh?’”

“Yes. Fuh. Don’t you speak Norwegian?”

Norwegian? Norwegian? Nor-fucking-wegian?

Why am I such an idiot?

I toss away my tab end at his feet and look haughtily up into the air. I wish Street Boy was a bit taller, because right now he’s probably got a brilliant view of the world up my nostrils.

I can feel him getting annoyed. Slowly but surely.

Or not so slowly:

“Fuck off. Just –” He kicks out at a rusted bit of pipe and a few splinters of protesting metal fly off it. “Fuck off.”

We stand there for a moment.

He looks at me expectantly.

Throughout my life, numerous mistakes have been made when people pull the expectant mask out. Some of them good, some of them bad. Some downright painful. This is usually because I feel the need to respond right there and then to their face. Others may be capable of resisting the desire to gush and say the first thing that comes into their head. I can’t. In fact, I am so far into the unable in this area that it’s worthy of the full, unabridged, unabbreviated term: I cannot.

“Is it still thirty?”

I did not just say that.

I expect Street Boy to smirk at this before telling me politely to go away and exactly where I can put my thirty quid. This I am prepared for. I am not prepared for his actual reaction.

Anger.

“You’re not fucking buying me! For fuck’s sake!”

“Well, why, the price gone up?”

“FOR FUCK’S SAKE!”

He actually breaks the pipe this time. I start to feel scared. My mum always said I’d have weak bones when I’m older because I didn’t like milk too much. She tried to flummox me with chocolate milk. I was not to be fooled. I was an astute young thing, once upon a time. But if he can crack clean through a metal pipe with just the weapon of his shoe, he could seriously render my legs useless. Then I wouldn’t be able to run away. Ever. I’d be constantly surrounded by the present, condemned to never flee again.

I like fleeing.

I stand there and blink. That’s never got me in trouble before, I don’t think.

“FOR FUCK’S SAKE!”

The words sting as they hit, burning in streams. I don’t understand. I just don’t understand. I twirl this thought around for a moment. I still don’t understand.

“I don’t understand.” Honesty is the best policy. Except when I lie.

“Of course you don’t fucking understand!”

Well, that’s alright then. As long as I’m not expected to or anything. But as long as you’re glaring at me as if you’re waiting for me to combust, like the entire weight of the universe just crashed down on your head and it was me who dragged it down, I wouldn’t mind a bit of an explanation. If you don’t mind.

He turns away from me again and starts pacing, those clunky shoes beating out a ridiculous, pitiful, scuffing beat on the battered concrete. There’s no way I’m going to get any information out this mumbly little fucker today.

I sigh resignedly.

He flicks at me like an accusation: “What the fuck you sighing for?”

“I was sighing resignedly.” And I was as well.

He sneers: “I didn’t ask for a fucking adverb. I asked why.”

Well, if he’s gonna be like that about it, I’m gonna serve up a big slice of pedantic along with my answer: “Actually you asked ‘what the fuck’ I was sighing for.”

“Wanker.”

“Cunt.”

He folds his arms and looks the other way, hair back over his face. I could plait his hair and dress him up as a schoolgirl and he’d blend right in now. Bit of lip gloss, maybe.

This thought does a full circuit round my brain.

I don’t know whether to laugh or drop my trousers and have a wank right there in the street.

I try to bite my lip to suppress both options. But my mouth’s already open. I’ve been silent for too long. I need to speak. I tried doing a sponsored silence at school once, for twelve hours. Not even starving children can get me to keep my mouth shut and tongue still for more than half an hour.

“But the tattoo…” I say. Pathetically. Without knowing why. Like an inky fish with a sultry pout can salvage anything from this wreckage.

He whirls his head round and his hair spins out as if it’s in water. I can feel myself being put on the scales and sized up. He says something quiet that gets lost in the air.

“You what?”

His voice gets slightly bolder. “You’re not buying me.” It’s an order. My back straightens as I snap to attention. “Don’t want you to.”

Does that mean he doesn’t want me to buy him, he doesn’t want me anywhere near him full stop or that he wants to have him but not for cash? Probably none of the above, knowing him.

Which I don’t, I’m reminded, cruelly. I don’t know him at all. He’s a complete stranger that I watch, out my window. Because I can’t not. He let me have a bit of him that money won’t buy, but snatched it away when I knew too much.

The scheming, mumbly, little, fucker.

“Pete –” His voice is a needle, fresh on vinyl, crackling as its spins and ruins its virgin touch.

He draws in a long sigh. It takes about twenty minutes. There’s no way someone as compact as him can actually physically hold that much air. It must be streaming out his fucking eyes and every pore by now. Unless he has that hollow bone structure birds have. Honeycomb. He can just fly away.

The world has started its thirteenth rotation on its axis. I am now officially half a month older. And he’s still taking a fucking breath.

“Look… I’ll see you, yeah?”

And he walks off before I even have chance to respond. Chance to produce a pen and demand it in writing. A chance to hurl him against the wall, writhing and furious, and interrogate him until I know whether that was a threat or a promise. Hmpf. The rudeness of some people knows no bounds. I stand and watch him leave. His hair’s blowing in the wind back towards me, its strands outstretched like begging hands. Like it belongs with me.

Fat chance, like anything ever belongs with me.

***

 

Frighteningly sober. Not two adjectives usually applicable to me. They are now, though. I take a deep sigh (it feels like the moment for a deep sigh, what with the overhead lighting and stillness of the hall) and knock on Jules’ door.

I don’t know what I’m doing here. I was sat in my flat after work, picking at my tea cosy (Nan knitted it for me) and not thinking about anything. The feeling of being drop kicked in the chest had gone. But left nothing – nothing – behind for me to cling on to. I like clinging onto things. It’s why I still have my rabbit (inventively called ‘Rabbit’) that I got when I was a toddler. It’s blue and kinda threadbare but has pride and place under my bed. Well, it’s hardly the best impression to make on someone you’re trying to fuck, is it? Hi, I’m Pete, oh, yeah, just ignore the stuffed children’s toy, I don’t cuddle it as I go to bed or anything. Just keep it for comfort now and again. Not even my charmingly sheepish grin could pull that one off.

I’d even tried drinking copious amounts of tea. Which always works. Except this time I just needed to piss a lot and I still felt like someone had turned my ribcage into a cavernous void.

I wanted to hate him so much. For letting me have a bit of hope, you know? If I’d never spoken to him properly then I’d just be angry, like I was yesterday, that someone else had their grubby mitts on him. After Last Night I can’t just be angry. I’m scared of him. I'm scared of how much he’s stolen of me. I'm scared of me. I have tea cosies and sing Judy Garland songs and have stuffed Rabbits and shag people I shouldn’t really go near.

Thinking in circles like this got me nowhere. I put a Carpenters record on but that didn’t help. ‘Rainy Days and Mondays’ made me sob a bit. Finish off a box of Kleenex. That wasn’t opened before I put the record on.

It’ll just be the hangover.

So I decided that misery loves company. Especially company with weed and vodka. And smiley eyes. And a nice arse. And a spare room for you to pass out in. Who’ll make you bacon and darn your socks… well, maybe a bridge too far. Jules can’t sew to save his life. Needles perplex him. The whole concept of stitching things together is a bit beyond his mind. If it didn’t chafe so bad, he once confided to me, he’d fasten all his clothes with Velcro and be done with it. I didn’t ask how he knew Velcro chafed.

I knock again.

“Jules! Open up! It’s Pete!”

I don’t see why that would make the slightest bit of difference, but it’s nice to think that it might. I press an ear to the door. There’s silence in the flat. Apart from the sound of Coronation Street starting up. I never had Jules down for a soap fan. I bet he’s got slippers and a pipe hidden away somewhere in there. Probably in that box under his bed that he won’t let me open, no matter how many sad wide-eyed faces I toss at him.

“JULES! FUCKSSAKE! OPEN UP!” That might sound a tad rude. “PLEASE!” There we go. Manners don’t cost a penny.

Sounds of life behind the door; “Alright, alright, keep your hair on…”

I lean back on the doorframe and try to look pathetic and worthy of pity. I shouldn’t have shagged his boyfriend. Just gotta look him in the eye and lie to him, straight up. Pretend nothing ever happened. That’s the spirit. Nothing ever happened. Stan who? Office chair? Condoms in his top drawer? Brown eyes flashing at me, victory in the air like I’m some trophy he’s just won? No idea what you’re on about. Nothing ever happened. No idea what you’re on about.

“Doherty.”

Pathetic look dissolves. Replaced by gormless disbelief. “Stanthony?”

He’s wearing jeans. The top button’s undone, as if they were pulled on hastily. He’s eating peanut butter. Off a spoon. I don’t like seeing people where they’re not supposed to be. It unnerves me. Polar bears in zoos. I could join Greenpeace.

Oh, yeah, and for some reason he’s wearing what can only be a ladies’ furry leopard print jacket-coat thing with the buttons undone and only bare skin hiding underneath. It finishes just above his scathing hipbones and the sleeves stop midway down his arms. I must’ve knocked on the door to 1976. How novel.

“Jules isn’t here, man.”

He’s far less intimidating when he’s not stood behind his desk and chipped into that suit. He’s got bare feet. How can anyone be intimidating with bare feet? How can anyone even entertain the possibility of being even remotely intimidating whilst wearing leopard print fur?

I really, really want to laugh. Quite a lot. But I don’t want to irk Stan and end up back at home reading that crap magazine I stole from my neighbour (Shocking real life story: The Rev Who Got Too Randy!) on my own. I bite back my laugh. It’s hard. Believe me, it’s hard.

“He gonna be long?”

“Yeah, went out with his roommate for the night. Left me here with fucking Crown Street or whatever it’s called, man, and no fucking food.” He shrugs, good-naturedly.

Why couldn’t this be the Stan I shagged? This one is nice, friendly. If slightly disco for my tastes. Not daunting. Isn’t eyeing me like a fat bloke eyes a birthday cake in a baker’s shop window with his name on it. I can get on board with smiling, slightly sleepy, bit sheepish, bare-feet Stan.

“Oh, right, well… I’ll be off…” I don’t move a muscle. I want to. I should do.

He looks at me thoughtfully. “You like peanut butter?”

I don’t. It tastes foul. It looks foul. The whole thing is foul.

I nod.

That smile – the one from his office – returns.

He turns round and walks back into the flat. The door’s left open. Wide. Waiting for me.

***

It’s alright. Nothing untoward is going to happen tonight. It’s alright.

Look at me, eh? All it takes to make me resolute about a decision is a feeling like all my vital organs have been clawed out my chest, by some vicious parrot with gnarled talons, and like my bones have been deadweighted with lead. It’s a wonder everyone doesn’t sign up for similar treatment, just so they can be firm and resolute like me.

Stan’s slouching on the opposite end of the sofa, scooping out peanut butter with his finger, Coronation Street’s on mute and I, for some reason, am spilling out my heart about Street Boy. Stan’s chiming in with a few appropriate grunts now and again. But, all things considered, this is safe.

“… so I don’t know what the fuck is going on apart from him deciding that tormenting me beyond the bounds of all possible humility –”

“You hungry?”

“Huh?”

Stan stops watching the silent argument on the TV screen and looks at me, concern on his face.

“You hungry? You eaten anything today?”

He sounds, fleetingly, like my mother. That jacket is having a strange effect on him, I swear. I bet if I wasn't here he’d be digging out Jules’ not-secret-enough stash of Olivia Newton John records, pulling on a pair of bright pink spandex pants and dancing round the kitchen to “Let’s Get Physical.” Oh to be a fly on the wall…

I shake my head. He leaps up in a surprisingly fluid motion (must learn how to do that, all my gangly limbs tangle round each other too often and I end up falling over quite a lot) and I follow, the empty peanut butter dumped on the coffee table and him destined for the fridge.

Its slim pickings in there. Peanut butter dregs seriously begin to look like a tasty and nutritious meal considering the mouldy looking donuts and cheese that are on offer. My eye catches the glint of something surreptitiously hiding itself behind something green in a jar that I don’t want to think about.

“You didn’t tell me there was jam!”

My thieving magpie fingers have clawed off the lid (after briefly checking the sell-by date) and stolen inside before I can even get the sentence out. Stan looks like I’ve just turned into a tulip, eyes wide with bewilderment.

Jam is my kryptonite. So sickly, so sweet, so strawberry, so sticky. I spiked all my hair up with it once. Then made the unfortunate mistake of putting my woolly hat on. Not only did I have to spend the evening soaking my hair in fairy liquid to prise the hat off my head, but when I woke up in the morning I had a rogue sock, a copy of Cosmopolitan and half a chicken drumstick all clinging to my head. Made for a tasty and rather educational morning. I learnt that, men – once a cheater, always a cheater – and that for my face shape, a jaw-length bob with a blunt-cut fringe would be slimming and enhance my eyes. And that chicken and jam are a startlingly good combination. Although plucking clumps of your own hair off prospective food is a bit of an appetite-crusher.

“I’ve never seen anyone get that enthusiastic about jelly.”

I frown at him: “It’s not jelly. It’s jam.”

I became the English Language Enforcement Officer when I stepped through the door, obviously, since I now care enough to stand there, jam about to drop off the end of my finger onto the floor as I stop halfway to my mouth to get my sentence out. Wasting jam is worse than wasting anything. Bring on global warming, the tidal waves. More warmth and more water there is, the more of the UK can be devoted to strawberry growing. I live on the top floor of my flats. I’ll be fine.

“Uh-uh. This is an American’s apartment. American name on the rent book. American stuff, American food.”

He raises an eyebrow. It’s a precise gesture. I have little to no eyebrow control and can feel envy spurring my line of argument on. I follow him back into the living room, making my point in-between fingerfuls of strawberry sickliness.

“Yeah, but was bought at an English supermarket, yeah? English jam, innit?”

“Haven’t you ever heard of habituation? It’s jelly, round here.”

He sounds so damn authoritative that I can’t help myself. His voice is on some reflex arc that makes me fling my next fingerful at him. I have absolutely no conscious choice over the action. Whatsoever. Honestly.

He laughs wickedly after glancing down to check that I hit his face and did not, did not, harm his precious fur coat.

“Ho, ho, so it’s like that now is it?”

My head nods itself. I realise the unstable and highly precarious position of the jam as it hangs loose between my fingertips too late. Far too late. Since Stan’s leapt forward in some arching of muscle that stretches out his chest before me far too invitingly from within the confines of leopard print and grabbed it from me.

He waits. Smiling. The thoughts play across his face.

“Stan…”

“Pete…”

“Don’t throw jam at me.”

I’m wearing a suit. It’s not an especially nice suit or anything, but it’s the only one I’ve got to last me the rest of the week and last thing I want to do is have to get it cleaned or anything. Besides, the jam is clingier than I am. I can tell it would never come out properly. And I’d get followed by every wasp in all the land for all eternity. Eventually, I suppose, I’d be able to tame them, once I’d got over the idea of running like hell from them. I could have my own pet brigade of wasps. I could set them on Street Boy. And Kate-wench. And all other foes that stray across my path. World domination would surely be mine.

His tone is low and innocent sounding. I don’t believe it for a second.

“I’m not gonna throw jam at you.”

I take off my jacket and tie as a precaution. This can be done under the guise of being too hot (what with the way I’m apparently fanning myself by means of an explanation). Taking off my shirt might give the wrong impression. I only came round for some tea and sympathy. Not anything that involves any states of undress whatsoever.

From the way Stan’s watching my every move and still smiling menacingly beneath his hair and clutching the jam, I fear my shirt is going to be a casualty of war.

We wait.

Stan’s finger runs round the jar, concentric circles till its glowing red. If I didn’t know him to be carved out of the most beautiful side of pure evil then I’d imagine Street Boy’s lips tasting like that – they’re the same shade. But since I know he’s carved out of evil, raging heartlessness and given a fucking great crown of Temptation by Lucifer himself, there’s no way I’d dream of his mouth being something as sweet and simple as that.

“Stan… you said you weren't gonna throw jam at me.”

“I did. And I'm not.”

He slides closer.

“Why don’t I trust you?”

His knees touch mine and I've nowhere left to run. Fur coat may make Stan have slight motherly tendencies but has cranked up the predatory aspect to ridiculous proportions. I am being stalked on the Serengeti of the suede sofa. Attenborough will pop up with his binoculars any second now.

And, here, we watch as the Doherty tries, in vain, to think of a way out of this situation. Despite, an overwhelming lack of camouflage, the Stanthony has somehow, still managed to sneak up on, its innocent prey. As you can tell, by the palpable cloud of tension, in the air, the Doherty begins to realise, the futile nature of his struggle. Instead, it adopts his standard pose, the best means of defence, and simply waits, letting the predator know that it, is in fact, in charge. The Stanthony begins, to realise, this too. Watch its eyes, as they shift, from the jugular, to the crotch area, trying to fathom out, where best, to go for the kill.

We wait.

Stan’s finger twitches.

There’s a split second of silence.

Followed by a satisfying slap of jam. Hitting my face.

“Stan!”

I’m closing my eyes and trying to work out how to get jam out my eyelashes when there’s the sound of a jar being stood carelessly on wood and quick hands working on my shirt.

“Stan!”

I swipe the jam round my eyes, ignoring how it’s smeared all across the rest of my face like some cheap lipstick.

“Stan, look, c’mon, look, no…”

He’s gone temporarily deaf. Carries on round the buttons till they’re all undone and there’s a sticky finger tracing down my chest, leaving the slightest of red streaks behind in its wake.

“No, Stan, please, no…”

When I was in uni, all those years ago, I went on a protest. Something about… whales? Trees? Pandas? Fur? Budgerigars? Anyway, I got my girlfriends’ tie-dye (pink) t shirt, didn’t wash my hair for a week, and even went so far as to steal some Doc Martens from a charity shop in preparation for my day of glory where I marched and shouted to save the world. Yes. I got my placard on a splintery stick and waved it angrily and followed some people with megaphones and catchy chants that looked like extras from The World’s Ugliest Cheerleaders II: This Time They’re Unwashed And On Crack! I chanted along and felt a sense of wellbeing.

Halfway round I got bored, went to Tesco, bought some Petit Filous and a Twix and fucked off to the pub to watch the FA cup semi-final. Can’t remember who played, but the underdog (always have to support the underdog) lost and I gained, in no specific order: a barmaid who wanted me to take her pants off; a football fan (winning team) who wanted me to take my pants off; and a football fan (losing team) who wanted both of us to take our pants off.

My point: you can protest all you want but at the end of the day you will end up eating gloopy refrigerated products with your fingers and shagging someone you probably shouldn’t.

Stan’s jeans fly off so fast under his fingers I feel like asking for a slow-motion replay to check that they were ever on in the first place. His jacket remains resolutely round his shoulders. I'm not too happy about it (miss his shoulder blades, the way they bite against his skin) but as he sits back against the sofa and drags me on top of him, I realise I wouldn’t see them anyway. Plus the jacket gives me something to curl my fingers into. Furry.

Jacket also makes Stan snappier than usual. Not in the PMT way. In the biting way. My earlobes are the first victim. Then my chin. Then the side of my jaw. Then the final buttons straining desperately on my shirt. He’s a talented one, that Stan, I’ll give him that. Never met anyone that could undo buttons with their mouth before. Must have a talented tongue too. If he can speak two languages.

A noise only describable as ‘erphzat’ comes out my mouth as that dual linguist tongue of his follows the jam trails up to my neck. And then the teeth bite.

“Ow!”

“Pants off, Doherty.”

…must resist temptation to say ‘aye aye captain’, must resist temptation to say ‘aye aye captain’, must resist temptation to say ‘aye aye captain’…

…it would kill the mood, it would kill the mood, it would kill the mood…

It’s hard to get trousers off when you’re straddling someone but since Stan used his devil powers to become the King of Disco, he has even bigger aspirations than normal. I think. Since he tightens his hand round my waist so I can’t get off him.

I shouldn’t be doing this. Really shouldn’t be doing this. Jules deserves better. Jules deserves Miss World. Not me and Stan, doing this when his (dress up like a cowgirl and let me whisk you away to safety) back is turned.

This world isn’t about what you deserve, though. It’s about what you get. Whether you like it or not. It’s about Stan pulling me closer into him so our hipbones clash again. It’s about my fingers sneaking under the collar of the jacket and touching his skin and making him gasp. It’s about how simple it all feels, every touch guaranteed to result in hitched breath and eyelashes fluttering in pleasure. It’s about how Stan bites at my ear… (Ow! Nippy little teeth on him)… And bites at my name. It’s about scaring off that hollow feeling I’m dragging around, that feeling that I’ve lost something. It’s about reminding myself that I never really had it in the first place.

Thing is, I'm out of practice at reminding myself about not getting upset over things I think I have, but then don’t really. Like when I thought I’d won that Blue Peter competition but there turned out to be another Peter Doherty in the world. Pfft. How I’d hate to be him.

Like when Street Boy looked at me, smiled, honest to God smiled, at me, with me, for me. And then snatched it away and got down on his knees, for nothing, and made some bloke come with his hands twisted into his hair, for nothing. After spending all last night with me. For nothing.

I don’t quite understand these people. Didz has a girlfriend, but he shags me. Stan has a Jules, but he shags me. Street Boy has a friend but he won’t shag me.

Stan’s hands suddenly leave me and start fishing down the back of the sofa. Okay then. The suede might be softer than my skin but still. Unless the fur coat is part of a Stan textures fetish. I don’t mind leather and a feather boa is definitely the right side of the line, but the line becomes a dot in the distant distance when Lycra comes into it. I have my standards. Plus I don’t have the arse for it. Not unless I wear BodyShaper underwear, but then things tend to get a bit… constricted.

He gets a ‘eureka!’ look on his face which quickly disappears as his left hand gets held triumphantly aloft and he realises its clamped around a stale bit of pizza. Which he shoves back down between the cushions. Then another ‘eureka!’ look as something tantalisingly shiny gets clasped in his hand.

He smiles at me; “…Keep a condom stash in here, just in case. You know…” I can’t tell if Stan’s playing censor or my brain is, which one’s deleting the ‘Jules’ from that sentence.

Guilt stabs.

It’s funny, when you shag people, because you stop being just you and start being a patchwork of all the parts that they explore with their touch. Like the middle of my back, in between my shoulder blades, that belongs to Didz and his big hands, keeping me in place. And I suppose my knees will forever be pledged to Wolfman, all those times I knelt down on cold concrete for him. And the place on my neck where my collarbones pool, that’s Stan’s. The skin stretched over those parts responds to the slightest touch. Normally. Like I'm giving myself away bit by bit, trading them off for flashes of ecstasy because I’m too scared to belong to no one and far too bloody scared to belong to someone. I can’t quite work out why I can hardly feel them at all now. Wonder if Street Boy’s skin is suffering the same. Too jaded to feel at all.

It can’t be though. When I grabbed his hand in that tattoo parlour and he curled those fingers round my fist I felt it. That faint tremor through his body, a response to my touch. I felt it. Saw it shake in his eyes.

The skin on my hand prickles.

My fingers coil round a strand of hair that keeps hanging from Stan’s head into my eyes. And he looks at me. Winces as he puts the condom on. Kisses me and makes me forget. Kisses me and lifts me up until we’re flashing back to his office, me on top of him, names groaned and pleasure gained. Sweat and rapture exchanged. Only this time with added leopard print fur, restricting my view. Making Stan’s insistent skin play hide and seek behind it, that frantic chest of his appear in flashes, speeding up as we go harder and harder. I bite the collar as I come. Tastes like mothballs. And jam. It really is a miracle condiment. Goes with anything. Even guilt.


	5. Chapter 5

Didz’s hands are in my hair. It’s strangely relaxing, basically having my head nuzzling in his armpit whilst he toys with the ends of my hair. We’re lying on his sofa, fully clothed for once. There’s some music on that Didz described as ‘ambient jazz’. I didn’t ask. And I suppose it should be one of those moments for a deep heart-to-heart conversation; where the darkest secrets of our souls get shared, but I doubt Didz actually has any real secrets. I asked him once about it and he mumbled something about stealing a calculator. A scientific one, no less.

So instead we sit in the silence, and I’m actually pretty sleepy despite being all cramped up, but I don’t care. I need to sleep. For a hundred years or maybe more. I’m all too tired and all too confused for anything. I think even Didz is too tired for a shag now. Normally he paws at my clothing till it all magically falls off and leaves us in a situation where it’d be just plain rude not to shag.

But I’ve been avoiding him and Stan since I saw Street Boy a couple of days ago. Been avoiding everything, really. But it’s a tad scary, going all hermit-like and cutting yourself off. Especially since, clearly, I’ve been firing off waves of ‘I want to be left alone’ in secret for the last few days. So every time I check my mobile or my answer phone (home or work) or my emails (all three separate accounts), there’s never anything there. Stan and Didz are naturally picking up my signals. Wouldn’t put it past Stan to have sonar. Though Jules has naffed off on a training course for the week, so Lord alone knows what he’s doing with his time.

I don’t really care right now. I only came over so I wouldn’t be on my own. I don’t like being on my own. There’s no real way to escape yourself when you’re alone.

“Kate says there’s no way you’re nineteen…” Didz’s voice is rasping and thick with sleep too. It’s nicer.

Hold on. I’ve never even see hide nor hair of Kate-wench. I don’t mind him having a fictional girlfriend but I draw the line when she starts having opinions on me in the third person. I frown at Didz. Takes an immense effort.

“She’s seen you passed out on the sofa enough times to decide, apparently. She thinks you’re about twenty six.”

Kate-wench is a demon. A hell demon. Can’t be having this.

“Are you nineteen?”

Didz sounds worried.

“…M’no…”

Time for some honesty perhaps. Didz’s arm suddenly leaps away from me and my head hits the sofa, hurt and disappointed Didz face bearing down on me.

Dirty old man.

I smirk.

“Well, only for the rest of today, anyway… m’birthday tomorrow…”

This is one of those little harmless lies that hurts no one.

Didz grins as if I’ve just handed him a prize. He doesn’t say anything, but that must’ve been the right answer because his arm’s back all warm and protective-like around me. And the music finally clicks off and there’s the hum of digital clocks, faint and red, filling the air but it’s alright and it’s no surprise Kate-wench likes Didz, he’s all big and protective. Makes me feel like everything’s okay. Like Street Boy isn’t out there alone and like I’m not powerless to protect him.

***

I got woken up by Didz cooing at me this morning. I’d left a drool spot on his shirt. He smiled down at it like a child. It was all too sickly sweet for me. I can’t handle things like that so early in the morning. I need tea and then I’m alright. He tried to feed me a bar of Dairy Milk for breakfast. He seemed to think it was nice that it had melted all over his sleepy fingers. I wanted to be sick.

I left pretty sharpish, but not before Didz made me promise to come back over tonight at ten sharp to see him. I was never going to say no to a shag, but he held my body back from the door with his imploring eyes till I promised. Had to cross my heart and everything. Little does he know I’ve crossed my heart so many times it’s permanently split and leaking the red that stains my lips.

Still, its ten fifteen now and I’m outside his flat and there’s no sign of life in any sense. Not even Didz-life, which is arguably a whole new species. No answer when I call his mobile or home phone. No answer when I hammer on the door. No answer at his office extension. I can get quite panicky in these situations. I mean, abandonment is not something most people queue up for, but I don’t like waiting. It makes me think I’ve been stood up. Left alone. And I start thinking that maybe something’s happened to them. Maybe they got lost or hurt or killed or something and that’s why they aren’t here, where they should be, where they made me swear I would be. And what if they never turn up and I’m just waiting here. It could all be some cruel joke. Eyes watching secretly behind a screen, waiting to laugh at me. My life could be one giant goldfish bowl with a crowd of giant people staring down at me and laughing at my misfortune. Didz could have died like our old goldfish (Pancetta – I didn’t know it was a type of ham; just thought it was a really good word) and they could have flushed him down the toilet.

I don’t like this. The hall is too quiet.

I had to pull my amazing avoidance method at work today. Away from Anthony. Guilt was quietly rising throughout the morning about Julian and it peaked just about lunch. I had the strange delusion that Julian was somehow telepathically picking up my treachery signals that I had to be firing off randomly every time I got in the vicinity of Stan. Mainly because of his email. Julian shouldn’t know how to work email. Modern technology isn’t his friend. He’s never written me an email in my life. And today he sends me one. Asking what I’m up to. If I’ve got over ‘whatever the fuck problem I have shoved up my ass about Stan, man, because it’s getting to be a fucking drag with me glaring daggers at him all the fucking time, and he wants us to fucking kiss and make up, man, by the time he gets back from the course. Only not literally. Unless he gets to watch. Lol.’

Jules does not lol.

He has clearly been kidnapped and is being forced to write emails against his will. And clearly his captor is planting lies about me and his boyfriend that are making him irrationally suspicious. Either that or Julian has become both computer literate and psychic. If it is the latter, he will be a force to be reckoned with. We could form a crime fighting duo. I’ll be the wit and brains and he can be the muscle with a preternatural understanding of computers and other people’s thoughts. And he can get his Velcro clothes so he can rip them off to reveal his suit, complete with a big ‘Jules’ in powerful writing on his chest.

God, please don’t let Didz have been run over. He’s really dim, and although this is irritating, I know he has a good heart hidden in there somewhere. In his manly chest. Grr. I make a roar face into the reflection of the door knocker. My head’s all stretched into a sphere. Fingers go on forever and eyes swallow skin like satellites. Grr.

If I was really as big as I am in the door knocker reflection then I’d be able to crawl up Didz’s left nostril. Tickle his brain.

My mobile rings. Polyphonic “Waterloo”. If I formed a religion Benny and Bjorn would be my gods.

“Didz?” He draws a breath in to reply but I’m not done yet. “Where were you, where are you, you made me cross my heart and you don’t even do punctual, do you, wanker?”

I can hear his grin across the wire. T Mobile really is a clever network if they can convey emotions across a wire. When I phone Jules I have to make him speak his emotions and facial expressions because his voice never changes.

Ah, the good old days. Before Stan, before I started acted like someone with an unquenchable thirst for guilt, and overwhelming need to forget by whatever means possible. Just before, I suppose.

“There’s a key to my flat hidden behind the light. Go in and I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“Didz…”

He’s already hung up.

I go in and settle myself on his sofa. Then decide that’s too presumptuous, so I stand. Then that’s too stilted, awkward. Leaning? Too hard. My arse goes dead. Slouching? Bad for my posture. Waiting? Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.

I stalk off to Didz and Kate-wench’s bedroom. Kneel down and look under the bed. Nothing of interest. A rogue shoe. Back of the wardrobe it is then. Root through lots of expensive looking women’s clothing, hanging bored and faceless, until I strike gold. A box. A little, inconspicuous, box. I crack it open and it does not disappoint. Polaroids. Ho, the camera never lies.

Kate-wench posing in her underwear. Nice blonde thing he’s got there. Not fictional after all then. Blonde and nice. Makes you wonder what he’s doing with me, really. Every Tarzan needs his Jane. Traditionally without a cock. Cue Kate-wench.

That makes me the ever-obedient monkey, doesn’t it?

Didz, blurred and caught off-guard in his boxers, walking through the bedroom door. Kate-wench giving him the finger as she laughs from behind a shower curtain. Didz naked, sucking on a lollipop in a very suggestive manner. Didz and Kate-wench both working on the lollipop in a sickeningly happy way. I almost expect to find one of Didz in an apron, cooking a Sunday roast, Kate-wench in rubber gloves washing up. All frighteningly domestic.

The Polaroid camera’s also lying on the floor of the wardrobe. The possibilities fire round my brain.

“Hi!”

And of course Didz interrupts right at the moment when my twisted mind is ready to wreak havoc upon his life.

I slope out the room, not bothering to replace the photos. I may take Kate-wench in underwear and Didz with lollipop for later. I’m sure there’s a potential website in there somewhere. And Jules’ll get a kick out of it. Come to think of it, Stan will too. And Didz in boxers is one that’d do nicely in a frame next to my bed. It’s a familiar sight, really. Nice one at that. I could draw hearts round it and write his name in bubble writing.

I’m instantly aware that Didz is happy, even for Didz. His skin’s bouncing of its own accord. His smile is so large it blinds. I wish it was infectious. I feel fogged.

“It’s your birthday…”

What? Oh, right. My unbirthday. I mumble and nod and hope this goes away quickly.

He snaps his grin away and gets the air of a kid with a secret. “Got you a present.”

“You didn’t have to…”

This could go one way or the other. It’ll either be a garden gnome (Didz apparently thinks these are ‘funny little things, look like they need a friend, remind me of me when I was young’) or it could be really far into the dirty side of things. I learnt fast that there is no middle ground. Not with The Didz.

“Close your eyes.”

I oblige. I bet myself a tenner he hasn’t got any trousers on when I open them.

“Keep them closed.”

He’s usually a quick un-dresser. Might be posing himself. Setting up a video camera, that kind of thing.

“Keep them closed!”

I didn’t even so much as flutter a lid. Whatever he’s got or doing is making him act similar to a circus sideshow. I hope the video camera’s getting all this too.

“Alright…” voice sounds like a drum roll. “Open them!”

I do. Didz is fully clothed. No sign of video camera or gnome. Or Alsatian or other obscure present. Hold on, Didz’s arms are behind his back. Visions of a dog collar and lead spring into my mind. He looks suspicious.

Didz doesn’t normally have four legs, does he?

“Didz…”

He grins and steps sideways. My mouth falls open. The person’s mouth falls open.

“This is Carl.” He says, matter-of-factly, arms outstretched like ta-dah! “He’s ours for the night.”

I’m dreaming.

There is no way Street Boy is stood there, disbelief rapidly being replaced by murderous rage. No way. Not in Didz’s apartment. No way.

I turn to Didz. He’s pouting. “Don’t you like him? I do, he’s pretty, but it’s your birthday…”

“Hggh, fllff, mmphf…” Well said, Doherty, well said.

Street Boy is the first to recover.

“Can’t fucking believe you! Tell you you’re not buying me, so you get one of your fucking sleazy mates to fucking do it!”

“Mmphf…”

“Fucking cunt!”

“I didn’t tell him to buy you! I didn’t know!”

This is ridiculous. There is no way fate dealt me this hand of crap. I should have a royal flush. Surely.

“Yeah fucking right –”

Didz chimes in: “No, honestly, you see, it’s his birthday and you’re the present.”

Street Boy folds his arms. “There is no fucking way I’m fucking you, Pete.”

I don’t have time to notice how much this hurts.

“There’s no fucking way I’m fucking you either, Carl.”

He flinches as I say his name. I don’t feel bad for a second. We both turn to Didz. Since he is now the oracle with all the answers.

Didz is beaming large enough to bring moths: “I didn’t know your name’s Pete!”

The last person to wear that facial expression was the bloke who cracked the Enigma code.

He didn’t even know my fucking name? Would explain the whole Dirty Little Tart thing, I suppose.

How can he not even be bothered about knowing my name?

This day cannot possibly get any worse. Street Boy’s – sorry, Carl’s – fingers are itching to grab his knife. I can feel each one of them. Each one of them wants to wrap round that knife and hold it against my neck until I crawl back under whatever stone he seems to believe I live beneath. He’s looking at me like I’m scum.

Didz takes a moment and looks at us both with kindness in his eyes.

“Everyone calm down, yeah? I’m sure we can work something out…”

***

“I’m pretty sure we can work something out…” Didz says.

“With a cunt like you, m’pretty fucking sure we can’t.” Carl says.

“With a wanker like you, I know we can’t.” I say.

Well then.

Didz’s eyes are glinting in that way of his. Glinting in that way that means one thing: that he’s about to get exactly what he wants, and the rest of the world is powerless to stop him. That’s how I ended up dancing around in his bathroom, wearing Kate-wench’s heatherberry temptation lipstick and singing “Baby Love” into the shower head. That’s also how I ended up feeling more than slightly ridiculous (and actually rather pleased with myself) at the look on Didz’s face as I strutted back and forth in those bloody bunny slippers and some stockings. Didz teased them from my legs with his teeth. Filthy man. Though I am quite concerned about his bunny slippers fetish.

Street boy is glaring at me. He’s furious. Absolutely fucking furious. Smouldering beneath his hair, that bitten bottom lip’s stuck out in defiance and those eyes are pouring through me and leaving blisters of fear and lust in their wake. I can’t tell why he’s still here. Can’t tell why he’d be here at all. Especially looking at me like this farcical excuse of a farce is in any way my fault. I am the innocent bystander. A mere pickle in the great jar that is life.

Didz actually looks like his brain might fire out of his nose at any moment under the strain of such pure excitement. Considering the size of the Didz-brain, this might well happen.

I have my arms crossed over my chest, protecting my vital organs from that gorgon-stare Street Boy has suddenly acquired.

Visions of him playing pan pipes and flying around my head in a toga, with grapes tucked behind his ears, enter my mind. All perfectly innocent. Flying around… playing pan pipes… red lips parted around the top of the pipes… toga slips an inch… or two… or seven… bit of a breeze… damn flimsy, those togas, especially when he’s flying about…

And now my arms, which are crossed over my chest to protect my vital organs, are serving as a really nice frame for the immense hard on I appear to have developed from nowhere. Ish.

I could feed him grapes quite happily. We could just set up our camp in Didz’s living room and he can recline on the sofa and I’ll feed him grapes and leer at him shamelessly. He’ll have to bite the grapes off the bunch though. Individually. Roll his tongue round them for good measure, then tear them off with his teeth and slowly unravel them with his mouth. He could slowly unravel the world itself with that mouth. The time-space continuum would be baffled by that mouth. Einstein didn’t account for that mouth in his theory of relativity. Fool.

Shame that mouth wouldn’t even open up to me and it was only too fucking glad to accept anything from his friend.

Drawing my eyes away from those lips and all the sins they must have seen, and only scarcely begin to tell of, is like dragging myself out of quicksand.

Suddenly the situation comes crashing back into my brain. I am stood in Didz’s apartment. With Didz. And Street Boy. I am wearing my favourite suit. It is nice. Both Didz and Street Boy are staring at the impressively conspicuous (if I do say so myself) bulge in the front of my grey trousers. However, Didz is staring at it like a dying man looking at Marilyn Monroe in a red bathing suit. Whereas, Street Boy is looking at it, trying desperately to hold on to the fierce hatred in his eyes and scare off the slight smirk that’s flirting with his lips.

This could be about to get interesting. But one must never underestimate the power of Street Boy. He’s wasted in his current occupation, really, when he is clearly gifted with the most conniving mind I’ve ever encountered. He played the role perfectly; spinning me some elaborate plot of lies, and casting me in the leading role because he knows us starlets love the limelight.

Didz stalks closer to me. Grabs my arse. Makes me yelp. Like a squashed guinea pig.

“I’ve got the flat to myself… it’s your birthday… and he’s here too…” Didz isn’t wearing a shirt under his suit jacket. I could hibernate in that chest hair. “Seems a shame to waste such an opportunity…”

So that’s how Didz manages to earn three times what I do. His Overwhelming Grasp of Logic. It all becomes clear.

Street Boy’s eyes flash in a dare. Threatening consequences if I agree. Daring me to disagree. His upper lip arcs:

“Fuck off.”

It’s meant to deter me, I’m sure. I’m meant to want to back away from the malice strewn all over his face.

I reckon I could get off on him tying me up somewhere and snarling obscenities and insults at me like some creature on the prowl. That voice licking over my skin. Oh yes. Definitely. More than enough. That fucking fury and frustration firing in his eyes. I’d be the one tied up, but he’s forever bound, seems to me.

My little scenario gets rudely interrupted by the rasping sound of Didz stroking his stubble. He does this purely to piss me off, I’m sure, as while I have a chunk of hair at the back of my head that will quite happily turn grey, I cannot, for the life of me, grow more facial hair than a thirteen year old. Girl. Not that I want a moustache (except to twirl between my fingers in a scheming pantomime bad-genie way) or anything. But I’d quite like to avenge my poor upper lip that is constantly subjected to Didz’s stubble and comes out in a pleasant rash in protest. Plus Didz has named his stubble. Barney. Who on the face of God’s green earth names their facial hair? Barney Stubble? I asked him what his eyebrows are called but he slapped me for being cheeky. So I called him a wife-beater. Which upset him. Which is where the whole stockings incident came in.

Still stroking the chin. Why doesn’t he stroke his chest hair instead? I prefer doing that myself. Like the challenge of raking my excessively blunt nails over his skin when I have to hack through the undergrowth to find it. Also makes my three lonely chest hairs feel a bit less inferior, the knowledge that at least I can feel it when someone runs their tongue down my chest.

“I want to see you two together.”

For a straight bloke with a girlfriend, Didz’s mind doesn’t half spend a lot of time considering new and increasingly acrobatic/dangerous ways to shag blokes. Last time he made me stand up on the bed. I mean, honestly. Prior to the Didz and the Labradidz brain, my idea of adventurous sex was leaving the lights on. Didz would have me doing a handstand in the kitchen sink if I didn’t have extraordinarily weak wrists (side effect of too much time spent ‘entertaining’ myself on the long, cold, lonely nights, I think). Standing up on the bed did compensate for that time I ate too much cake and threw up, on that birthday when my mum hired a bouncy castle and I was too ill to go on it. I suppose however good the bouncy castle was, it wouldn’t have made me come so hard I fell sideways and cracked my head on the headboard. Risky stuff, this sex lark.

Hold on.

Hold on just one bloody minute here.

Didz said what? What???

He smirks: “Yeah… definitely… you two together…”

My eyes may be about to pop out my head and bounce around the room. I turn my head to face the Mayan warrior mask that scares the shite out of me, that Kate-wench has hanging on the wall. If I’m going down, may as well smash that beast en-route.

Street Boy speaks, voice toeing the line of boredom perfectly – “Doing what, exactly?”

According to Didz’s eyes, that’s the million-pound question.

He walks over to Street Boy, whispers something into his ear. Street Boy’s mask shakes a bit. I stand there, blinking fastidiously, waiting for this all to be some brilliant dream. I don’t kid myself that it’s desire. Don’t be stupid.

If Street Boy is about to pull his knife on Didz he’s looking remarkably calm about it. Considering Didz is about eight times his size. And can crush walnuts in his fist. I witnessed it. He was making a coffee and walnut cake at the time, but the display of fist power made me think twice about mocking him. Despite the presence of an apron.

Didz’s hands move on to Street Boy’s clothing. Street Boy’s all wrong under this light. Everything about him usually sits together so fucking well but now he’s just plain uncomfortable. His eyes are too scared under the bright light, darting everywhere and not trusting anything enough to linger on them. Hair too tangled and too straight. Too messed up to fit in the seamless display of Ikea design in the flat. Not messed up enough considering the last time I saw him it was being used to control the pleasure of that bloke. Funny, there’s no memory written on him. No smirk of triumph about the bloke. No happiness, mind drifting away to a place of safety far away from here. He looks like he wants the ground to swallow him up, but that’s he’s got nowhere else to go. He’s too pale, as well, washed out in his black clothing. That black demeanour shrinking under halogen glow.

Street Boy looks like he hasn’t got anything left to hide behind anymore. Carl looks like he hasn’t got anything left to hide behind anymore. Trying to cling on to his anger but it flying away, breathing too shallow and bulge too obvious in his jeans as he purposefully tries to not look at me. I want to laugh in his face. Then take a Polaroid of him so when he stabs me till the smile leaves my eyes I can be buried with it and take it to the afterlife.

Aha! Bet you can wank in hell!

He stands there as Didz’s prying fingers find the zip to his leather jacket. Curl round it without permission. Except that permission probably came when the price was agreed. When those Queen’s heads got shoved into his pocket and forgotten about in the taxi ride over. Selling himself.

Wonder what makes him happy. It’s not liquor. It’s not money. It’s not really even his friend, not that I can tell.

In fact, tormenting me appears to be the only thing that brings him joy.

He really is evil.

Didz slides the jacket off his shoulders and lets it pool on the floor around him, fear stalking through Carl’s face. He looks naked without it. Stands there and raises his arms as Didz pulls his t shirt, stained and ripped and falling stunningly apart, over his head. Stands there as the stretch of perfect skin strains to cover all the knots of muscle that press against it and the ribs that trace their outlines against it. Stands there as Didz takes in Street Boy with his eyes then turns to me, a wild look on his face, one of pure appreciation and no understanding.

Street Boy undoes his own jeans with a shrug, like what else was I gonna do? Kicks off his own shoes. Not meeting either of our eyes.

He doesn’t wear boxers.

Gggghhhhhfrrrrnnnnnnnuuuugghh.

I mean, gggggggrrrrrhnnnnnnnnnuuuuuurrrrggggghhhhhrrrrrggghhhhh.

Gnugh.

…Gnff…

Didz speaks:

“Fucking hell. Fucking hell… Fucking hell.”

Didn’t realise he’s still on the earth. Still in existence. Didn’t realise I’m still here either. I have eyes. Connected to my nerves. I have eyes and I have anticipation and satisfaction fighting over my veins. Clearly the rest of the human body is a waste of space. For starters, I’ve always been doubtful about the relevance of kidneys. They make good pie at the end of their time, but in between? Square root of fuck all use. Like now. No kidneys.

Why am I thinking about kidneys?

Looking at him hurts. Seeing him hurts. My eyes can’t take it in. My mind can’t hack it. I’m trying to capture everything at once in case it gets away, and every curve of thigh and stretch of skin and clash of black hair makes me want to dissolve. It’s also making me so fucking hard I think that if someone doesn’t touch me soon I will go blind with need. Curse of the human body, always debasing those pure moments.

Street Boy hides a bit more behind his hair. Eyes focused on the floor. He looks like he’s wishing too.

“Fucking hell.”

Street Boy scowls like so-what?

Didz whirls his head back and forth; looking from me to him, me to him, not understanding why neither of us seems to be seeing what he is.

To be honest, I don’t know why I’m not seeing what he is. But whilst my brain is quite happily screaming HOLY FUCK through it’s megaphone – (my brain is now a cheerleader, in blue and yellow, naturally) – it is also seeing him for what he is. It sees nerves behind the scowl. It sees the way his left thumb is scratching at his right wrist, back and forth, like a mantra in soft pain as it wears his skin red and raw, slowly but surely. I can’t see his eyes. He needs a big blanket wrapping round him and some cocoa.

Something in Didz’s radar senses a problem. Something off. I am amazed but not at all surprised. Even Labradidz’s have instincts to compensate for loveable doziness. They can smell a man in dire need of a fucking in that coat-cupboard I fell asleep in at twenty paces. Some may say that this means I smell of desperation, but I am comfortable with that.

“What’s the matter with you two? Is this not okay?”

Street Boy’s head jolts up and he stares right at me. Eyes. Behind the bars of his hair. Burning like two sapphire suns, bewitching in their fury. On fire with hate.

A thought fires across my brain: He wants this as much as I do.

No. Bad brain. Can’t be right. Stupid brain. Bad brain. My rationale slaps the cheerleader, who is practically crying with joy and doing splits like there’s no tomorrow. Bad brain. Stupid brain.

Didz carries on looking but doesn’t touch. I dunno if this is good or bad. If someone else touches him, I’ll cry, probably. Well, yes, actually, I know for a fact I will get more than a little bit teary. But if it’s Didz, then I can see every hitch of breath and raptured moan and keep it secret in my mind. Didz’s fingertips must have some of me in there, forensically trapped. In a way it’d be like me touching him. Only by proxy. Someone else doing what I’m too scared to do.

I wish I knew what was going on. Except, I don’t want to know.

Street Boy takes a step towards me. He’s hard, but so is his jaw, and his eyes flash up to mine, every hatch battened down so nothing slips out. Never seen such reluctance coupled with desire.

‘Course I was being stupid, fucking ‘course I was. Things like that don’t happen, not really. Especially not with people who are so obviously tailored for pleasure and so blatantly talented at lying. Sometimes I wish I could lie. Convince myself that all the half-hour encounters are enough. That its desire and not desperation that sends me running off to meet whoever calls. They never say hello, never say anything much apart from a hushed, taut, ‘ten minutes’, and I come running. Like a six foot two Lassie. Wish I could lie well enough to lie to myself. Because, in theory, between them, Didz and Stan have everything I should want. Money, success, a Jules and a Wench. Throw in a widescreen TV and a six pack of Carling and you’ve got yourself a little piece of heaven. Right here on earth. They have all I should want – all I can get, realistically, now, in exchange for hours spent at work. It doesn’t satisfy them. They shag me. And there’s no way I could even begin to kid myself that I satisfy them.

I don’t know what to do.

Street Boy and Didz are looking at me, sharing an expression of expectant between their faces. My fingers fumble at my tie, stagger their way over my shirt buttons and make a downright mess of untangling myself from the jacket.

I didn’t want to be like everyone else. Didn’t want to be someone who snaps their fingers or flashes their cash and buys pleasure and indulges in it, purely because they can. I wanted to earn it, gain it, lose myself to it and forget all about the pieces of myself I’ve strewn through peoples’ lives and, well, belong. Didn’t want to be like everyone else. But Street Boy’s not giving me any choice. He doesn’t want anything else from me. That much is painfully clear.

Didz stalks over, slaps my shaking fingers away from the clenched knot my tie has wormed itself into and starts loosening it himself. Taking control. Fingers trace over my chest. I shiver. He’s quite possibly entertaining himself with some bizarre dot-to-dot with all my beauty spots. Last time he linked them all together in biro. Made them into a palm tree. He’s got artistic vision somewhere in that giddy brain of his, I’ll give him that.

I can feel those eyes on me. Eyeing me with contempt. The ridiculous expanse of my legs, the complete lack of definition in my arms, long and hanging down by my sides, like they’re waiting for someone to love. My stupid bird neck. The white paper of my skin that sometimes feels like it’s nothing more than tracing paper tossed lazily over my bones. Big flapping feet. Like having two canoes at the end of my legs. At least in heels they’re part way to dainty. Why couldn’t I be a three-foot-nothing Roman statue come to life in glorious gold, black and blue? This life isn’t fair. Fucking genetics.

I focus on Didz because I can’t bring myself to meet his gaze.

Didz is also surprisingly good at occupying a large amount of one’s vision.

“CHRIST!”

The commanding hand sneaking inside my boxers takes me by surprise. A bit. Stars that were never there before start to dance around the ceiling, swaying dizzily and making me clutch onto Didz’s shoulders for support. It’s the opposite of that night in Jules’ flat when I could scarcely feel a thing. I can feel everything now. The imperceptible slide of cotton as it gets shrugged away from my shoulders; the rough fingertips just teasing me; the hot breath of anticipation beating down my neck; Didz’s smirk and thrill of control as he watches me writhe under his touch and try sofuckinghard not to; the two holes Street Boy’s eyes are burning into me as flashes of my skin appear out from behind Didz’s frame. The fist that’s clamped round my heart and the cloak of confusion that’s enchanting my brain.

My trousers hit the floor. Boxers follow. Didz’s eyes drift down, an eyebrow raises and a smile of smug satisfaction widens. I feel – conspicuous. And terrified. Conspicuously terrified. Conspicuously terrifying. Terrifyingly conspicuous. Terrifyingly conspicuously terrifyingly conspicuously terrifi –

Oh shut up.

Street Boy looks me up and down. Bites his lip, biting back a laugh or a sneer. I can see them both, clashing for control of his eyes. I’m some x-rated marionette he pulls the fucking strings of for his own amusement. I feel exposed.

I am exposed.

I want by brain back. M’sure I had one once upon a time.

Didz stands back, walks behind the dull leather of the sofa, head flicking from Street Boy to me.

We stand there. Looking. Waiting. Pretending. It’s as if there’s only him and me in the room, as if it’s only ever been me and him in the room. My three lonely chest hairs can’t wait to respond to his touch. Even if it is nothing at all. Better to have something than nothing. Right?

His shoulders are broader than mine, curves of muscle stretching themselves out languidly under his skin where mine are far too lazy to be arsed. His chest is all narrow, all sharp angles of claustrophobic hipbones and collar bones and ribs clamouring for space to make their presence known. Have a part of him for themselves. I wonder if I run my fingers down his chest, what moans of pleasure I could provoke out his mouth. Where the pitch will waver, his voice will crack into a fractured plea, just at that certain spot where the white face of the ceiling starts showing all its colours for him too. If my hands stop shaking enough, they’ll press hard into his shoulders, feel that muscle curl in response, then trail, so slight, down his chest, taunting his skin as they sneak lower and lower. Trail my fingers through the hair as it sparks from his stomach, lays claim to the blank canvas stretched over the frame of those jagged hips, and threaten to go further. Leave him so he’s just shy of begging. Leave him so the please is poised on the tip of his tongue, so that he has to struggle with all his restraint to stop it coming out. Let his eyes flick back open from where they’ve fluttered shut in pleasure and meet mine. So I can see the last traces of want and submission be chased away as that command once again takes control.

It’ll never happen. Not in this lifetime. Didz coughs. Taking control:

“You two. Together.”

Street Boy’s eyes smirk for him so that pout doesn’t have to. Wickedly. He moves closer. It takes a lifetime. I swallow, trying to cast my nerves aside. Swallow loudly.

That’s alluring, right?

Please? Just a little bit?

He flicks that jet black hair out of his face. Says nothing. Hope it stays that way. Don’t want him to be paid to say my name.

A cold, steady hand rakes its blunt nails down my chest. Street Boy watches with satisfaction as my breathing stops and my chest rises into his touch. Feels so good it stings. If I don’t touch him I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. If I do touch him, he’ll probably make damn sure that I regret it for the rest of my life. Well. Better to be caught eating stolen sweets than with your hand in the jar.

My fingers reach out to touch him. My eyes watch the hand like it’s a completely alien object being dropped into a brave new world. It’s heading towards his chest, that cage that seems nowhere near big enough to contain all that anger that mars his every movement. Now he’s closer, I can see scars in the shadows of his ribs, like once upon a time he wanted them to press against his skin, but his body let him down, so he painted them in himself. They’re so faint, so frail. Wonder how many people know about them? No one would know unless they let themselves get this close, let themselves see beyond that feigned arousal and threat of danger.

My hand is wobbling like a cheap jelly again. Being shoogled on a plate. By some kid who’s on a trampoline.

Wish he wasn't here like this. Wish he was he of his own accord. Mind, who’s ever with me through free will?

There’s just time for a stutter of a laugh to prise open those lips before there’s the dull sigh of knees bending and Street Boy drops to the floor.

Street Boy? Knees? Floor?

…In front of me?

My own knees are feeling decidedly shaky right about now.

My hands steady themselves on that hair, not quite daring to venture in, wind themselves into the tendrils. They just rest on top, hesitant and scared, altogether pathetically pathetic.

He feels me shaking. Nerves. I hate nerves. Hate the butterflies in my stomach and the mocking hand of thirst tripping down my spine. Hate the tremor in my breath and the plea in my eyes. Hate how every sense has turned against me: the smell of him intoxicating me again; the way he’s painted behind my eyelids and in petrifying Technicolor in front of them. The sound of ragged breathing, too many cigarettes, weighing him down; the taste of him, recalled in a frenzy by my memory. Touch is the biggest traitor of all. His thumb slopes along the vague line of my hip, gradually pressing harder and harder. Like he’s plucking up courage.

I chance moving my fingers into his hair.

He trembles.

There’s a sharp intake of breath and his face suddenly, openly, turned up to face me. Mouth bitten red, hanging open, pools of red just beginning to flush into his cheeks. Blue eyes wide, pupils dilated in my shadow, so all I can see is my own reflection, and, for a moment, gratitude. A fleeting need for more.

There’s a flick of a lighter, snapping the silence, followed by Didz, the Living Breathing Interruption:

“Fuck – fucking lighter – fuck – aha! ‘Bout bloody time. One bloody job to do in life and it can’t even do that! Lighters!”

He smiles at the five-for-a-pound neon pink lighter in his hand like it’s his child. Then raises approving eyebrows at the scene unfolding before him.

I look back down at Street Boy. Nothing. Face is blank as paper.

His eyes narrow and words rush quietly out his mouth. They cut through the myth I trapped myself in. Slice right through it all.

“Strictly business.”

I don’t have time to recoil in shock or let anything sink in, because the fingers round my hip get harsh, force my hips forward to meet that mouth.

“Ggghhhhhnnnnggghhhrrrruuuuggggghhhhffff…”

Those lips are too tight and the tongue too harsh. Every movement’s a provocation, cruel and pitiless. Working too close around me and every single nerve in my body might be screaming in twisted pleasure and my heart might be kicking out so fucking hard that it’s damn near knocking me off my feet, but it’s not the simple ecstasy I want, I need. It’s a form of fucking torture. A glorious taunt from a merciless mouth.

Oh dear God I just want, need, more.

“Carl…”

His name rolls so fucking well on my tongue, sounds so stolen. Because I shouldn’t know it.

“Christ!”

Sending tremors of delight all down my spine and making my hips buck harder to thrust into that mouth. I’m so fucking close and my mind slams the shutters, reducing everything and making me slave to whatever new movement his tongue wants to make.

I don’t even notice Didz coming up behind me until I feel his arms tightening round my waist and he rubs himself up against me. I prise my eyelids apart and see Didz’s tanned fingers in Street Boy’s hair, trying to control him but failing, pushing him harder onto me and it’s too fucking much, too fucking much…

As I’m just about come it’s red behind my eyes. Red-stained, like I know Street Boy’s mouth’s gonna be, all flushed and shining. Because of me. Difference is, he’ll see nothing but the most devastating lust in my eyes, whereas I’ll see nothing but cold loathing in his eyes. Because of me. Strictly business, you see. Strictly fucking business.

As I’m just about come it’s red behind my eyes. Red stained like I know Street Boy’s mouth’s gonna be, all flushed and shining. Because of me.

But then it stops. Didz jerks his hands and Street Boy’s mouth is gone. What?

“Hunnh!? What?”

Don’t they know you can’t do this to a man without giving him a sodding heart attack!? In medieval times they used this as a fucking form of torture. You can’t get me right to the edge of the cliff, balancing on the edge, then not push me over.

This is crueller than when my sister put my Barbie in the microwave, because I melted her Action Man’s feet so he could wear my Barbie’s shoes. This is crueller than when I got slapped by Fat Trisha at school, because I stole her earrings and sold them to Patrick in exchange for a blowjob in the Languages stock room. This is even crueller than when my last girlfriend hit me round the head with the kettle, because I happened to smile at another girl when we were out. I don’t understand women. I mean, it took four tequila shots to get you in the taxi with me, three pairs of earrings and a bloody partridge in a pear tree to get you to date me, and just because I smile at her she’s gonna hop into bed with me? I wish. Female logic is flawed.

Didz’s logic is flawed. Definitely. I just want to come. Please. I’m not averse to finishing myself off. My entire body feels like it’s ready to just give up the ghost. Just – please…

I turn to Didz in wide-eyed desperation. He grins back, nose crinkling in amusement:

“It’s your birthday: can’t have the fun over that quickly.”

That’s a tad mean. I’m not that quick to the finishing post. He laughs.

“Youth of today, always want instant gratifa-whatsit.”

Street Boy knows I’m twenty seven. Hardly a ‘youth’. Didz thinks I’ve just turned twenty. Street Boy is a rent boy I’ve lost my heart and (what’s left of) my mind to. Didz is a big bear-like creature who shags me, but has a live-in girlfriend. There’s no way any of this has ‘disaster’ written all through it like a stick of Blackpool rock. No way.

I can’t look at Street Boy. Again. Why couldn’t Didz just tie him to the bedposts and send me on my way with a Polaroid? A Polaroid would be brilliantly safe. Could keep him in a drawer, pull him out to satisfy myself and not feel any guilt whatsoever.

Aside from keeping me in a drawer, that’s pretty much what Stan and Didz do with me. Maybe I should suggest The Drawer Theory. The universe is governed by Theories. Humanity loves ‘em. And Didz has a wardrobe that’s bigger than my entire flat. And smells less like a chicken died in there. Along with its chicken relatives. Living in a drawer wouldn’t be so bad. I could cuddle up to one of Didz’s jumpers (he has an extensive polo neck collection) and kid myself that it’s him with his arms wrapped around me. Kid myself that anyone would bother. Plus jumpers wouldn’t have raspy stubble. This bears consideration.

Why can’t I just come? I’ll take my orgasm and leave, its fine. I don’t mind, not one bit. I’ll take my instant gratifa-whatsit. I like my instant gratifa-whatsit. Its one-hundred percent satisfaction guaranteed. I don’t want any more than that; no one gets any more than that. Sex is all about satisfaction, really. It’s the be-all and end-all. Everything else is just a distraction – feelings, politics, arguments; anything beyond simple lust is an unnecessary distraction – and distractions just make satisfaction harder.

Didz takes off his suit jacket, folds it neatly in two over the back of the sofa, next to where mine is crumpled in a heap. Does the same with his trousers. Those black boxers from the Polaroid I found earlier sway round his hips as he moves. I sneak a look at Street Boy, expecting him to be gazing longingly at Didz. He’s not. He’s looking at me. He’s not angry, just disappointed. Digging his non-existent fingernails into the red patch of skin near his wrist. I want to tell him to stop it, but it’s not my place. He’s staring at me, expecting something better. Can’t see his problem, I’m exactly as-advertised, exactly what he agreed to. A one night stand with less regrets and fuck-all strings attached.

I blink.

He blinks.

This is blinking good fun.

Didz rubs his hands together. “So, how’s this going to work then?”

He inspects his packet of cigarettes, frowning as it tosses a fistful of empty back in his face.

“Got more in the kitchen, be back in a sec.”

He makes a ‘go on’ motion with his hand at me, dazzling as he leaves.

The flat suddenly feels ten sizes too big to fit. My nakedness astounds.

Street Boy walks a bit closer. No closer. No. Brain will be forced to mentally wrap those legs round my waist and then all hell will break loose. Stay away!

“What d’you want, then?”

Visions of my school dinner lady malevolently thrusting a spoonful of rice pudding in my direction bark in the dark alleys of my memory.

“I can’t… you, I – can’t…”

I can’t have him like this. He can’t have me like this. I don’t want to want to have to explain myself though. I can’t. There is no way to explain to a rent boy that you want something more from him than you’ll ever deserve and he’ll ever be prepared to give, without sounding like a knob. Not that I've ever tried, y’know, but I’m willing to hazard a guess.

Nods once in response, shoulders relaxing slightly. Fingers leave his wrist alone. I can almost hear the skin breathe a sigh of relief.

Soft footsteps pad over the carpet towards us. Didz. With new-enhanced cigar feature. I might have to give Didz Stan’s number. Between them they run through almost every pre-punk 1970’s cliché with flying colours. Didz’s face plays at being evaluating. It’s an eerily intelligent expression. I have entered a parallel universe where Street Boy is here and Didz is smart. Only explanation.

Didz walks over to me, whispers in my ear. His chest presses against my back and my skin shivers of its own accord.

“Put your hands out, arms out straight, and walk to the wall. Close your eyes and lean forward.”

His voice is growling so low and shaking so fucking much I can feel it rumbling right through my back, through my chest and along every vein. Didz’s arousal charging down my veins along with my own.

I comply.

The wall is fucking brilliant. It’s cold and faceless and nothing like I imagine Street Boy’s skin to feel beneath my hands. It’s bland. Completely not interesting in any way. I want to marry it. I’ll just stay here, leaning on it, forever, and never feel a thing. Never open my eyes, never see anything. Just exist. With a permanent hard on. It’s an intriguing concept.

I could probably do it as well, if it wasn't for the murmuring I can hear behind me, the odd creaking of a floorboard underfoot. I paint every mutter of noise and shuffle of feet with white noise in my head. Focus on the wall. Think of Mary from work shaving her legs. Think of anything but the many, many, possible combinations of what could be going on behind me.

Stan shaving his legs with a fag in his mouth and his hair in rollers is alarmingly unattractive.

Feet pad up behind me, growing louder and louder until it feels as if they’re stepping down my spine. I want to know who’s stalking up behind me – especially since I’m so fucking exposed, braced against the wall like a criminal, just waiting for something to happen – but I don’t know what I’ll do if it isn’t Street Boy. Don’t know what I’ll do if it is Street Boy. I don’t know how I’d turn it down if he was there, behind me, fingers stroking down my spine and hot breath gasping in my ears. Don’t know how anyone would, really. But I couldn’t just lose it, let him go afterwards. No. Better to wonder what if than know what you’re missing. Yes.

Yes?

Didz’s voice growls in my ear. Relief collides with arousal and dazzles my nerves until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. Ten commanding fingers seize hold of my hipbones and Didz’s cock entertains itself with the back of my thigh.

“Happy birthday…”

Stan shaving his legs, Stan shaving his legs, Stan shaving his legs…

More footsteps pad up behind me. More footsteps that I don’t dare think about. Belonging to a person I can’t think about. Let alone picture him walking awkwardly towards us, skin twitching in the cool air of the flat, nervous energy clashing with anger that I can’t ever imagine being chased away. Gold skin, thick resolve, hair being used once again to screen himself off from reality, filter it through black bars that hang down into his eyes so he can pretend life can’t touch him.

Wonder if Street Boy’s pretending he’s anywhere else. Wonder what he thinks he’s walking towards. Pleasure or business?

Who am I kidding? It’s Strictly. Fucking. Business.

My fingers slip a little down the wall. Didz’s mouth flaunts its power over my neck, teeth biting at the skin and leaving me gasping for breath, my own frustrating flashes of pleasure blacking out all other noise.

Didz laughs softly into my ear. Then bites it. Ouch. Fucking ouch. Downside of shagging Didz – animals often get bestial. My eyes prick with pain.

But then everything else gets chased away by some tentative fingers teasing up my inner thigh, toying with my skin and tightening the collar of tension round my neck until it almost makes me choke. Street Boy’s fingers, with their calloused tips and faint tremble that might belong to either of us. I hope there’s not grim determination on Street Boy’s face as his fingers stray higher up my leg. I hope there’s something: y’know, just something.

My breathing’s heavy but regular, anticipation straining on its leash. It’s bizarre: Didz’s skin is laying claim to my back, his heart feels like its slamming right into my lungs, and I can feel his strong hands holding me in place. But the stretch of skin, the No Man’s Land of my inner thigh, is on fucking fire under Street Boy’s touch.

Two fingers push inside me.

StanshavinghislegStanshavinghislegsStanshavinghis –

“Fuck…”

Didz’s hands tighten round my hips, holding me up as my head almost wrenches itself off my neck as Street Boy’s fingers curl inside me and make my heart stop.

Oh. God.

I so desperately want to open my eyes to see if Street Boy is there, folded into the gap between me and the wall, fingers serving as the source of such fucking pleasure, but I have the sneaking suspicion that if I do see him there, then I’ll be pushed so far over the edge I’ll be declared legally dead.

Oh my Jesus.

I open them.

He’s kneeling on the floor, head lowered down so all I can see is his raven black hair, shining in the light, the slope and eventual curve of his back, and his arm, coming into shocking focus as it moves in-between my legs.

Street Boy feels me looking down at him, lifts his head up. Turns his mouth (fucking red, red it fucking hurts) into a smirk. Leaves it open slightly, breath hitching as he watches pleasure flood my face. Suddenly twists his fingers, making a hiss of bright bliss sharp out my mouth and my back curve and force myself harder onto that clever hand. Eyes sparkle, like he can’t believe he’s capable of making my eyelashes flatten themselves against the pale skin of my face and my desperate red mouth hang open. My eyes widen and his gaze never leaves my face as he adds another finger and watches me battle to keep my body connected to this earth. It’s almost fascination – I think, for a second – as if he can’t tear his eyes away from seeing the rapture build within me as his fingers move.

StanshavingDidz’slegsStanshavingDidz’slegsStanshaving –

“Fuck…”

Didz unlatches his hands from me and pulls Street Boy’s hand back. I’m ready to cry with relief. Street Boy’s still watching me. I can tell, even when my eyes slam shut as Didz thrusts in and my mouth hangs open, trying to release all the pleas I can’t quite get my tongue around.

And Didz starts to move and, God, my mind goes dark, blissfully ignorant of the cacophony of images waiting to hurtle through it. Just try and focus on the simple thrust and stabs of pleasure and groans of gratitude that my lips form. I just need silence. Need to forget Street Boy’s there at all, erase him from my mind so he can’t haunt me from my memory.

Only Didz won’t play the game. He’s fucking shouting:

“Fuck, you dirty fucking tart, fuck, Carl, make fucking him beg, fucking tart…”

“Fuck, off, Didz… just fuck, off, fuck, c’mon, harder… fuck…” It’s hard to be angry when every single part of your body is in ecstasy.

Street Boy smirks. Harder. I can feel it in the air. S’pose when you get your kicks from tormenting someone, there’s nothing greater than sitting back and watching someone else do it for you.

I need Street Boy to just leave me alone.

“FUCK!”

My shout rings out loud round the flat.

This time when I wrench my eyes open, they’re wet with tears. Why?

Because there is a Street Boy on his knees before me, with his mouth on my untouched inner thigh. Biting me. Hard.

“Fucking! Ouch!”

Why do people feel the need to bite me? Do I look like a bloody gingerbread man?

There was no way anything was going to be simple. With him it has to hurt. Has to be about control. Didz’s fingers dig in harder round my hipbones, I think, and thrusts in harder, I think, ragged groaning in my ears. All I know is the sight of that Street Creature’s mouth parted on my thigh, trying to break open my skin.

The teeth leave. Thank God for that.

Soft tongue moves over the skin. Slow. Nerve endings scream in agony and anticipation, not sure if they’re praying for the mouth to stop or to continue tracing patterns on my skin until my heart gives out. Tension rasps up my spine and my fingers scramble at the wall as Didz’s voice rings out again;

“Fucking, make, him, fucking, beg…”

Carl draws his eyes up to me, away from the red and purple mouth print that’ll be inked on my skin for days. A seal of approval or a mark of ownership? Or just a way of showing the price I’ll pay for this whole evening, Street Boy being here when he doesn’t want to be? Bloody bite mark. I bruise like a peach.

Carl draws his eyes up to me. Sees the battle between ecstasy and fear that’s raging in my brown eyes, the sweat I can taste as it slithers down my lips, the gasps of breath that pry open my mouth every time Didz’s hips slam into me. Sees me focusing so hard on him when someone else is taking everything they can from me, everything I’ve got to give, and, fuck, he must be able to tell I’m wishing it was him.

Don’t need to move my tongue or gasp out some words, not really. Every part of me is begging him already. And he knows it.

I wait for the faint creak of knees as Carl stands up and walks away, a sadistic flicker of a smile on his face. Leaving me behind now he knows how much I want from him.

I can’t break. I won’t break. I won’t beg. I bite my lip.

“Fuck, please, Carl, just, please…”

“You dirty fucking tart…”

Didz thrusts in harder, feral cries drowning out my own pleasure in the waves of his. His hands slip in the sweat of my hipbones. I want to click my heels three times and say there’s no place like home. Right now there’s no place like Bognor Regis, purely because it isn’t here.

“Please…”

Carl takes pity on me, finally, thumb running along its course back along my hip, reclaiming the skin from where Didz’s hands have left it behind. It traces a line, back and forth, straying lower and lower each time. My whole body is reduced to the anticipation contained in the six inch stretch of skin that never meant anything to anyone before.

Then, suddenly, fingers wrap round my cock, tentative, taunting. Embarrassingly, even that’s enough to get me so fucking close I can practically taste it. And the touches move instantly, instinctively, to all the right spots. And I respond instantly, instinctively, to all the right touches. An x-rated marionette, alright.

My hands slip down the wall, my eyes fly open and there’s blinding white flashes in my mind, twisting like thorns, where something fairly vital used to be. Carl leans forward, hand still going through the motions of satisfying me, presses his lips softly to the skin of my hip, marked as his. Barely there. Just enough for me to feel it. A touch so innocent and inconsequential, it’s practically nothing at all.

And I'm fucking gone.

Knees go, eyes swim with stars, ears hear only my ragged breathing and desperate heart. There’s only me in the world; me and that strangling bind of tense ecstasy as it tightens every muscle in my body and spits me into the glorious dark behind my eyelids. Where there’s only me, my ragged breathing, my desperate heart. And two fierce blue eyes threatening to cut right through it all.


	6. Chapter 6

Picking up scattered clothing is the worst part.

Watching someone else do it, you feel betrayed, somehow. Like they were just toying with you, letting their naked skin play at intimacy, only for them to snatch it all away. Like there’s nothing behind their body: it’s all a façade, a cardboard cut-out, that you’d have no interest in knowing anything more of. Not when they’ve let you inside them or been inside of you. Everything’s just less in comparison.

If you’re the one doing it, it’s the most embarrassing feeling. Eyes on you, seeing clearly what lust cast in a better light before. Every flaw under harsh light and scrutiny in their eyes, where there was appreciation and anticipation before. If I had my way I’d never undress. Some day someone will invent some way for me to come whilst fully clothed without making a mess of anything. Without going bloody tantric.

Can’t face watching the person I want more than anything becoming a memory, picking up clothes like defences, shrinking back to a glower and a furious pout.

As I pull my hands away from the wall and realise that there’s the very real possibility I may now be dead – my entire being feels like it just drained out my skin with that faint touch from Street Boy’s mouth – I also realise there’s no way I can stand around to watch him put himself back together and head out the door. No way. Even if I am dead, and that is my own personal purgatory, I will not stand for it. You hear me, God?

So, what do I do?

Run and hide in the bathroom, that’s what.

So what if I look stupid? So what if that leaves Didz and Street Boy alone? So what if Didz will probably let him go? Or pin him up against that faceless wall and fuck him hard, into some submission he’d never let me buy.

The hot sweat, thick as an oil slick over my skin, is turning cold. Pleasure fading like smoke. My mind chalks up the blanks. Street Boy, bending to pick up his clothes, tugging on his jeans and hurling his leather jacket over his bare chest, looking only for the fastest route of escape. So what if Street Boy just leaves, wiping traces of me away with the back of his hand? Destroying the memory in a barrage of vodka, scotch, gin, his poison of choice. So what if I let him get away because I’m stood, plucking at an especially tenacious eyebrow hair with Kate-wench’s gold-plated tweezers? Eyebrows are obviously of utmost importance at all times. They are, after all, frames for the window on the soul.

No one ever told me that getting what you want is terrifying. All the pieces of wisdom you get, filling up your mind like trash, not one of them ever tells you that feeling. I’m dancing on the sharp peak of a blade of a knife. High enough to scar the sun, about to lose it all any second, and hurts so much, because it scares you that it won’t be there to remind you that you’re so alarmingly alive. The exquisite pain of getting what you want, and knowing you don’t deserve it. Knowing that it’s gone, left without a second thought. And that’s all you’ll get. Because that’s it. Everything. It.

Bloody pesky tweezers. You can paint the swines with gold but they’ll still quite happily pluck your skin and leave your eyes welling up. Pesky things.

I miss the days when I was just shagging Didz and wanking off thinking about Street Boy. My right hand misses those days too. It feels a bit lonely and neglected nowadays. All it gets for its years of dedicated service is the joy of being cast aside. Not even a shiny gold watch for nearly twenty-odd years of loyalty. Not even a reward for that time when it felt slightly embarrassed because I painted the nails on it, just to see what it’d look like when a girl finally came near me. I was a bit of a late bloomer.

I brace my hands on either side of the sink, peering up at my reflection through my eyelashes, pretending that what I see isn’t really there.

The door handle rattles, right inside my bones. I grip the sink harder.

When I was seventeen, orgasms never felt like this. The aftermath wasn’t like this either. It was all fuck-shit-damn-wrong-boxers-where’s-my-shoe-shite-alive-my-mum’s-home-early, sneaking off and away. There were usually sandwiches involved, as someone’s mum offered them up when me and her dishevelled son/daughter appeared downstairs, trying to avoid everyone’s eyes. Post-coital cups of tea and a slice of Victoria sponge made my life taste better. Not this feeling. Like you just reached up to touch a star and all you got was burnt.

“Pete?” A tentative voice calls through the wood.

Grip. Sink. Harder. Will. Burst. Knuckles.

“Pete?”

The handle turns. Feels like its turning through my soul.

I can’t look up. Not even when the door creaks open, betraying my gleaming-tiled sanctuary. I wish I could hide. Go into hibernation. Be small and furry and destined to hoard nuts and possibly end up buried in a matchbox under a lollipop stick cross in some evil child’s garden. Footsteps pad softly on the tiles behind me. Every scrap of skin on my back sparks. My hands shake.

“Pete?”

The voice is soft, a mumble, faint even in the echo of the room. Please let Didz have shrunk and lost his voice in the space of the last two minutes. Just for me?

I flutter my eyelashes at whatever omnipotent being is choosing to listen to my ranting right now.

Please?

There’s a ragged sigh behind me. The ragged sigh that’s more telltale than a fingerprint.

I raise my head; turn around, slowly, hands reluctant to leave the white ceramic of the sink, the small of my back loath to lean against it. My eyes disbelieving.

Street Boy, skin practically glowing gold under the yellow bathroom lights, luminous with sweat. His skin glows in the flat space at the top of his chest, flickers in the stretch below his ribs as he breathes, catching the light reflected in the bathroom mirror and losing it again with each inhale and exhale. It’s these moments I’ll keep, I think. Just him being there, too far away to touch.

Every detail about him seems softer, smudged with pleasure. Muscles flowing, but still resonating with that incessant tension that makes his skin seem too tight to fit. Cheeks flushed, the briefest smudge of red. I don’t know how it dares blush against that skin. Eyes brilliantly wide, shining; almost garish, the sharpness of the colours against his skin, but even they seem softer somehow. Lips… my brain stumbles on adjectives for those lips. Resorts to making ‘mmm’ noises. Strands of his hair are trapped against his skin, black tendrils coiling in the sweat. If I was microscopic, I’d curl up inside the arc of one of them, fall asleep every night to the sound of his pulse chasing down his veins. I wouldn’t need food. I’d just be microscopic.

He looks up at me through his hair.

“Pete?”

He takes a step forward, then stops. I don’t move an inch. He’s so much shorter than me, even though I’m slouching slightly, leaning down, as if my body just wants to stray as near to him as possible without the rest of me noticing. My hips are level with his stomach; I can imagine the faint press of my hip against his taut skin. His shoulders would fit under the sweep of my arm. He could be drawn in, pulled close; I could wrap myself around him and wrap myself up in him, completely. His head’s slightly bowed, so his eyes can hide away. I can feel them focusing somewhere around my surprisingly bald knees. It leaves this perfect space – the arch of his neck, right down to the harsh outline of his shoulder – for me to venture into. An invitation. I can smell his skin.

Both of our mouths are hanging open, our chests rising and falling and tripping over short breaths. Both of us staring at some patch of the other’s skin as if it’s got our version of the script emblazoned on it. Some innocent expanse that could mean anything. Our breathing fills the bathroom, like it’s the only thing we’re capable of.

The patch of sweat-slick skin I’m staring at becomes part of a thigh, or the curve of his arms that matches the one of his back, gracing the bone in twin indents before the skin rises out to grace that arse. It’s the same as the curve of his mouth – soft and contemptuous, pleading for languor but caught in defiance. Same as his eyelashes. Same as the route my heart takes when it twists into my throat and makes my eyes water with his every movement.

My eyes almost close, trying to save me. The brush of eyelashes against my skin feels so damn real. All I can see is the curve of his shoulder. We’re stood so close, there’s no way we can move without touching. We’re playing Cat’s Cradle with our bodies, each looking for the simple trick that will set us free. Trying to work out who will make the first move.

I can smell his skin. Feel his breath as it chases down my chest. Feel each breath colliding with my heart.

I don’t know who moves first. Who responds out of instinct. There’s just some faint turn of the neck from both of us, leaving us both watching out the corners of our eyes. Spying on the stuttered breath that creeps out his just-parted mouth, the curves of the lips that press against his skin. The way the faintest scrap of blue eye is watching me, too, from underneath jet black eyelashes and prying strands of hair.

Our breathing drowns out the world.

There’s the slightest hitch in his breath and our bodies soften. The guard is let down just enough for us to turn, not touching, into the other. It’s pure adrenalin gunning through my veins. Some chemistry drawing us closer. Feels as if everything is hanging on the moment, like the air between us is nothing at all, nothing but our own hesitation. So fucking close. His mouth parts a little more, lifting his head so it can meet mine.

He moves forward, half-lifts an arm in an action that leaves his hand tangling round mine, cold fingers touching for the briefest of clashes. He jumps, glares down at his own hand like he wants it tried for treason. Shrinks away from me, hair suddenly drawn back over his face like a black-out curtain, mumbling excuses that I can’t catch.

I reach out, instinctively, I suppose, but without any intention of touching him. As if I could. He shrugs me off and glares, batting away at my hands as if they were being far more insistent than they are. He might be hysterical. I may need to slap him round the face. Throw water over him. Pinch his arse. That kind of thing.

He glowers, standing here in the bathroom, still undressed apart from his trademark scowl. His features are beautiful even when gnarled together.

“Don’t – do – kissing…”

The words come out scared and vicious at the same time. I just gaze at him, hopelessly, eyes wide.

Part of me wants to fist my hand into his hair, wrench it back and force him against the wall, force his mouth onto mine and pin him in place until he’s powerless to escape. Until he’s pleading for mercy and begging for pleasure and he’s all mine to do with what I will. The part of me I generally bind and gag and dump in the dark alley of my mind, waiting for it to get collected by dustmen. I don’t know what stops me. He’s smaller than me, slight. Not like anyone would know. Not like I won’t have done worse – not like I haven’t been done by worse. I can do what I want. Like Street Boy said himself, I’ve got no one to answer to.

I know I’ll never touch him: not now, not against his will, not even if he lets me, not even if he asks. He’ll just be another vain attempt at a notch on a bedpost that occupies far too much of my conscience. I’d rather never touch him than be just another person who uses that skin. I’d never get over it.

We stand there, him a step away from me, scowling threats up at me as our eyes lock. Blaring blue up at me like an accusation and a dare all at once. Me standing over him and trying desperately not to cower and beg for mercy.

The door swings open.

Neither of us move.

“Fucking hell!”

Didz laughs to himself, then devours Street Boy with his eyes, smirking at the fury in his face. He turns to me –

“Bit of a fucking handful, eh?”

Bit of a fucking mindful.

Didz yawns. All he needs is a cat nose painting on his face and his hair spiked up into a mane and he’ll be a perfect lion. He takes a deep breath, smiles, pours yet more joy into his eyes, yawns again, scratches his stomach, inspects a rogue bit of belly button fluff as if it might just be the Holy Grail, yawns again again, and nods in the direction of the bedroom.

“M’knackered. Off to bed. Sofa’s all yours.”

He raises his eyebrows. Winks. How come when I do that I look really drunk and like a pervy old man who slows down to beep at schoolgirls? Didz makes it look risqué, dirty. Like when that attractive newsreader comes on telly in the morning and I can’t help but imagine that stern voice saying all sorts of filthy things to me.

“Have fun, you two…”

I want to cling to Didz’s leg. Refuse to get off. Ever. Didz has size and strength on his side. My money would be on him in a fight, even with the considerable threat of Street Boy’s fury.

I watch Didz leave.

Wish I had my boxers on. Wish I had my suit on. Wish I had a suit of armour on. And a bloody big sword. And an army. And Moses and Jesus fighting for me. And Batman. Anyone with God-given miracle traits and/or a Batmobile is welcome on my side.

I wish Didz was here.

These people scare me. I’m scared of their lives, really. Because Didz and Stan have everything I should want, between them, and they aren’t happy with it. They throw me, the proverbial spanner, into the works. It terrifies me. The thought of getting anything I want. Because nothing keeps me happy. Nothing always makes me happy. So, what if life’s last great laugh at me is to let me get everything I want, and still leave me dissatisfied? Still feel like my own bones are crawling with frustration and desperation and there’s nothing I can do to stop them?

Its okay at the moment, you see, because no one stays around long enough for me to miss them. My heart’s forgotten, in favour of convenience. And I say the things that make them smile, and perform so well and bend to their hands and their will, just to keep them pleased with me, just so they won’t get bored. And before they get chance to get bored, I slip away and pretend like I never wanted them at all. Pretend that I don’t need anyone because I’m happy being alone. Pretend that I can take or leave it, like they can me. Pretend that they’re just a distraction, like I am to them.

I’m definitely wasted as a corporate drone. I’d be a perfect star. Blind them all for fifteen minutes at the time. My mask dazzles. I know. I’ve seen. It’s tried and bloody tested. Worn thin. A bit ragged. But it shines for hours at a time and no one’s any the wiser. I’m the ring your first love gave to you. I’m shiny and gold for the whole of the day, then eventually you stop treasuring it so much and the gold starts flaking off to reveal some cheap metal underneath that turns your fingers a rotten green. Because that’s what I do. I start taking things from people, demanding their time in exchange for my misery that they can’t begin to cure, and I don’t know when to stop. And no one likes that. So, it’s easier if you throw it away the minute it loses its shine.

Street Boy looks at me, one last time.

Street Boy’s hand closes tight around the door handle. I breathe a sigh of relief. So glad he’s about to leave. So glad. I can go back to eyebrows and wanking and pondering the ethics of stealing the three hundred and seventy five quid I found in a Bisto box at Jules’ (aroused suspicion because Jules doesn’t do gravy). I can just… go back to what I was before and pretend nothing ever happened. Pretend that every time he moves his mouth I don’t see it pouting round my cock.

He looks at me. I can see it in the mirror, where I’m studiously avoiding looking directly at him. I may burst into flames if I do. He parts his mouth, about to say something, then thinks better of it, opens the door, slips away. Leaves. Goes. Amen.

This whole thing feels like it’s been some bizarre magic trick. Now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t.

I turn back to Kate-wench’s tweezers and my surprisingly stubborn rogue eyebrow hair. Funny, even the thought of those bloody tweezer-come-torture-implements has my eyebrows running scared and my eyes welling up.

***

Didz’s sofa is roughly – I cannot swear on anything Biblical about this, but I’m willing to stake a fiver and my favourite pair of socks (cashmere socks) on it – about as comfortable as hijacking a yak and kipping on it whilst halfway up K2. It’s lumpy, smelly, bloody freezing, and prone to having hissy fits and hurling you onto his floor at obscenely early hours. I would go in to Didz’s lair and fold myself into the small part of the bed he isn’t sprawling over, but I can hear his stilted Didz-snores through both the bathroom door and his bedroom door, and I happen to know from experience that Kate-wench isn’t the only beast around these parts that gets narky when woken. Didz tends to get snappy, then insist on sex. Which I can’t. No. No more sex. Ever.

Well – maybe not ever. Just not now. Or soon. Or later. Or for a while after that.

I am cursed to be one of those stupid people that wonder what if for the rest of their lives. I should’ve just grabbed Street Boy when he was here in the bathroom with me. I should’ve just thought fuck it and got Didz to lean Street Boy against the wall on my behalf. I’m an idiot. Who can never have sex again. Because every single person that touches my skin – out of every person – none of them have ever made me feel simultaneously fucking terrified and like the bravest person alive. Every person that even comes within close proximity of me (a two mile radius) shall now forever be compared to him and will, inevitably, come up short. And when I persuade them to take my clothes off, I’ll imagine their eyes as his, their plundering lips as his, prying hands and teasing skin. Their ecstasy thrusting inside me will be his. And then I’ll open my eyes and it won’t be him.

So. Yes. Now I am celibate. About to embark on one man’s journey through sexual frustration, on the night of his non-twentieth un-birthday, by trying to sleep on Didz’s untamed sofa. It’s a heart-wrenching Oscar-worthy script in the making. I bet they get some blonde-haired beefcake of a bloke to play me. Julie Andrews would be far more appropriate. But I suppose she is in her seventies now, and she was easily best in the Mary Poppins’ era. So someone would have to invent a time machine that I could steal. But then, I suppose, having a time machine and using it to steal actresses to play me in a film of my life is a bit of a waste. I could use it to shag Debbie Harry instead. Have devilishly attractive children. Actually, stuff the children. I’ll dress up as a girl and snare John Lennon in the height of Beatlemania, before the hair kicks in and I have to hand him off to Yoko. They were into their Hair Peace/Hair Love stage by then. They might’ve let me kick around for a bit. I'm sure with full make-up and a minidress, I’d be quite the piece to have on your arm.

I take a deep breath before opening the bathroom door. Sadly, no wail of music from a string quartet, hailing my momentous change in lifestyle, strikes me. Just Didz’s snoring and a dark room that I stumble into, still blind from the glare of the bathroom.

I scuttle to the sofa, snatch my boxers back and try and curl myself into as small as space as possible. I’ll wake up freezing at four a.m. when the heating clicks off, but I don’t care. I just need to sleep.

It’s as if Street Boy was never even here. Maybe he wasn’t. If you want something hard enough, then you can actually trick yourself into believing it. There’s no way I trust my own mind enough – and I certainly don’t trust Didz – to convince myself it happened.

Carl’s mouth.

Clinging desperately to the back cushions on Didz’s sofa with your legs all folded up doesn’t leave much room for hard-ons. I’ll just close my eyes and pretend its not there.

Carl’s mouth.

Perhaps closing my eyes and pretending my brain isn’t there would be a far better ploy.

There’s a snort of noise behind me. I freeze.

Try and slow my breathing enough and stop my giddy heart, convince myself that I’m asleep. That all of this was a dream. No taunt of satisfaction tinged with regret, no charge of temptation and lust of a maybe forever trapped in my mind. Just me, passed out somewhere, dreaming of Street Boy, as always.

There’s the shuffle of feet behind me.

It can’t be Didz. I can still hear his snores. It sounds like a bloody NASA rocket is being launched from his mattress.

Burglar?

A burglar perching on the edge of the sofa next to me?

If I’m dreaming, it’s time to wake up. Definitely. Now. Wake up. Coma or no coma. Wake up.

Nothing changes.

I can hear the rasp of fabric against skin and the lengthy half-sighs of breathing. Feel hands searching for space on the sofa. I slip open an eye and desperately squint into the darkness of Didz’s flat, praying it’s not him and praying it is.

I thought Street Boy had gone. Left. Shooed. Run for his short perfect-arsed life.

But he’s here.

Halogen glow from the streetlights forms the perfect shadow for him. It paints his eyes dark, casts those lips as even more of a femme fatale in his face. Makes him look deadly. Shadows writhe over the contours of his arms; scythe away at his hips, form stark contrast on the pale skin below them, telling me he’s perfectly unclothed except for the shadows of night.

I can’t believe he’s here. No one’s ever here afterwards, not really. I’m shoved out onto the sofa, or frantically doing up my fly in the lift, or buttoning up my shirt on my way out the pub toilets.

Street Boy freezes. Looks down at me. Every shadow coils tighter as every muscle tenses in suspicion. He knows I'm watching him. Knows I'm not asleep like he thinks.

Shit shit shit shit shit.

I can’t tell whether shutting my prying eye or pretending that I'm most definitely asleep will work better. I just don’t want to break it. Hold my breath.

He looks back up again, once, eyes out the window at the night as if he’s asking permission. Then lies down next to me, shuffles closer. I try and stealthily creep deeper into the arms of the cushions. Don’t want to inflict the touch of my skin on someone who so clearly hates it. Maybe I should offer to sleep on the floor. It’ll be colder, but nothing could be worse than sharing such a small space with a curled hatred like that, waiting for me to wake up, so he doesn’t feel guilty about attacking a defenceless sleeping man for getting his sleazy friend to buy him for the night. I would fear him slitting my throat in the night, but I can imagine he’s the kind to want to watch the fear flicker in my eyes.

He moves closer still. His thighs send the back of my legs screaming into life as they brush against them. Hips dig into the small of my back. One arm strays hesitantly round my waist, not pulling me closer or keeping me in position, just resting there. His breathing’s wildly out of time with mine but I know I’m about to be beaten into submission, know mine will keep trying to keep time with his so he forgets that I’m even there at all, so he’ll stay a second longer. I wish my heartbeat wasn’t so fucking loud right now. I don’t want anything to stir in case it breaks his illusion that I’m sound asleep.

Fingers from his other hand tiptoe along my shoulders, curl round the short hair at the back of my neck, pulling just slightly. His breath skitters, nervous, across my face. He pauses. Leans in close, closer, closest I’ve ever been in the tangle of limbs and simple thrill of skin against skin. Leans in and presses his lips onto mine, soft and slow and too hesitant and afraid to be real. Soft and slow and stolen, like he’s terrified of getting caught breaking his own rule.

It kills me that I can’t respond. I’d succumb so willingly to that faint pressure and each tentative caress of lips against lips.

My mouth falls open in an invitation – I don’t notice it’s happened until there’s a tongue, quiet with the taste of whiskey, cigarettes, and, something, something I can’t identify as anything other than what my mind tells me is him. Carl. I’d always imagined the venom of that mouth, out to ravage and wreck and ruin, bruising my lips. The thought of it… But it’s so shy, so hesitant. So slow, like he’s trying to lay waste to anything that was there before, and claim my lips as his own, tracing each outline with his own and working my desire up to fever pitch with every secretive movement of his tongue. Unravelling everything and leaving me nothing more than his possession.

He draws back, and I can feel his wariness threatening to outweigh his desire, afraid I’m awake and caught him in the act. For a split second I think he’s going to be able to tell that I’m wide awake, frantically restraining myself from opening my eyes wide and staring into his, jabbing him with one bony finger in the chest and asking him to explain – in detail, with diagrams and visual aids – exactly what the hell is going on here. But he shrugs off his suspicion, buries his head in the crook of my neck, like he can kid himself for one night only that I’m enough to protect him from himself.

The smell of his hair is sweeping away at my senses and I know it’ll gladly haunt me for days.

I also know I won’t have to open my eyes to be sure that he’ll be gone by morning.

***

 

I awoke with a yawn at the first light of dawn, with bloody ‘I Believe In Father Christmas’ spinning round my head. I hate being woken up. Hate it. I don’t mind on those lazy Sundays when you can roll over, blink open your eyes, stretch into a pillow and begin the process of leaving your warm duvet behind, one limb at a time. Makes you feel like each one of the sun’s lazy rays dancing on your bedcovers is possibility.

Waking up as if someone with a foghorn (playing “La Marseillaise”) has interrupted your dreams, shivering and skin prickled with goose bumps, is not a brilliant start for the day. In the slightest. Although the fact I am still lying on the yak sofa instead of on the floor is a miracle in itself. Waking up covered in tab ends from the floor (Didz usually lets his cigs burn down till they singe his fingers and he drops them onto the floor in shock, wildly stamping them out as the sole of his slipper melts) isn’t too pleasant. But still. This is a bad way to wake up.

Especially when it is still dark. Hmmpf.

My spine’s all knotted into an obscure position. I’m sleeping like some man from a chalk outline, all angular limbs and bowed head. Well, I was sleeping. Now I am awake like some man from a chalk outline, white skin catching the frailest light and glowing in the dark.

Hmmpf.

My hair smells odd. Like someone else is trapped in it.

There’s a shuffle of noise in front of me, out of the darkness. It makes me jump, slightly. It’s all too much information for my brain to process. Feels like I’m picking up static from someone else’s station. The silence of the flat, the darkness, humming round my brain. The memories captured in the faint stabs of pain in my thigh, the cold snap down my shoulder left in the absence of hot breath dotting across my skin. The stillness of everything, and the way me waking up feels like the director just yelled ‘cut’.

The room’s swamped in monochrome and there are secrets in the air.

I get the feeling the shuffle of noise is about to answer everything. Temptation to continue staring at the grey swirl of the ceiling is overwhelming. It’s not quite burying your head in the sand. More dignified. More… well, okay, its head-in-the-sand. Works for ostriches. I feel a certain affinity with that leggy bird at the best of times.

There’s a cold click of a door handle betraying the silence. Halogen light from the hall creeps in, casting the figure, caught red-handed, into a silhouette. He pauses for a second, glances back into the living room, half his face hidden from the glow like the dark side of the moon. The half I can see betrays nothing. My heart strings get a non-too gentle tug. Street Boy has been cut and pasted onto my heart and is now vainly trying to tear himself off of it. Not unlike the old notebook I used to clutch to my chest with a flaking poster of Bananarama glued onto it.

Don’t get me wrong, I knew Street Boy wouldn’t be here in the morning, cold fingers pressed against my back and a lovely drool spot snaking down my shoulder. He just wouldn’t be. No. I’d steeled myself for his absence, prepared myself for the cold air at my back and kissing him goodbye in my mind. That would’ve been fine. I would have got up, flicked on Didz’s kettle, sobbed a bit whilst simultaneously amusing myself with my convex reflection in the chrome toaster, dried my tears and made a brew. Fine. But catching him sneaking out makes it worse somehow. Like there should be something I can do or say to make him unzip his jacket and lie down next to me again, but it’s all too inevitable to be changed now.

It’s worse, because if I woke up later he’d just be gone. Now he’s going and there’s nothing I can do.

“Good morning to you n’all.”

My words scratch, abrasive, at the darkness.

He jumps, eyes staring wide into the darkness. He’s all hazy, smudged with pleasure and shame. Mouth paler in the hall light, lips blurred round their edges from pressing into my shoulder. Skin washed out and yellowing like an old sepia photograph. Wrapped back up in a leather jacket and jeans.

He’s beautiful.

I bet he’s praying Didz’s sofa has secret magical talking properties that it has decided to divulge right about now. The idea of sneaking out is not to get caught.

Street Boy doesn’t take a step back, as if he’s afraid of what might happen if he does. Just remains there, only half of him visible in that yellow light of the hall, and turns slightly. Guilt is written all over his face. Maybe I’m just wishing it’s there so I don’t have to be so bitter.

“It’s always nice when people sneak away.” The words twist in my throat.

He folds deeper into the bonds of shadow, hiding his face away.

“Should’ve known not to expect you to stick around.”

I don’t know why I’m saying the words like this. They should be pleaded, spoken in a soft voice, delivered with a down-turned face and lowered eyes, eyelashes drawn down in vulnerability, playing on his humanity to make him unable to leave. Instead I’m sat up on the sofa, shrugging with every syllable and voice loud and clear, pretending I couldn’t care less. That I’m only speaking to watch it claw its way into his ears and see him try and disguise each flinch.

“Pete, look, I –”

I snort. I sneer. I snort and sneer, and if sarcastic was a verb and not an adjective, I’d be actively doing that as well right now.

“Don’t bother with excuses. You sell yourself. That’s all the fucking excuse you’ll ever need, love.”

He stares at me, blinks, traps any emotion behind his eyelids. His eyes flash blue as they catch a stray bit of light. I interpret the flash as a question – why are you being a total wanker?

My mind whips the question round my brain. Why am I being a total wanker? Because you’re leaving. That’s why. The first day of school, I didn’t hang on to my mum’s hand, crying. Oh no. I poured sand on Molly’s head and spilt Ribena over someone else’s potato print picture. I didn’t cry.

My mouth ignores the question completely. Crushes it underfoot like a cigarette. Opens for the next round of cold words, ringed with anger.

Street Boy mutters something instead, the hand from the door handle moving to cling round one of his unused belt loops, fingers flexing with his words:

“Could stay, y’know…”

The retort is out my mouth before I can catch it –

“What for?”

He freezes completely. Even his breath falters into silence, as if he can’t believe I’m capable of chipping off words like that, sounding so cold. I can hear that faithful Smeg fridge humming. I can hear my own heart stalling in my ears in disbelief.

He looks away from me. Mumbles.

“…just thought you’d want me gone, s’all…”

I don’t want to do it, everything, everything, is begging me not to. Slight stoop of his shoulders, the broken pact of his lips as they hang open in disbelief, the part of myself that’s watching me talk on some flickering screen and can’t believe that the Hand of God hasn’t clamped itself over my mouth and shut me up yet. I don’t want to do it, but I do.

Sometimes you just have to say the words to watch them break. Prove you can; prove they can’t; prove they never will.

“Yeah. You’re only good for one thing, after all.”

The slamming of the door doesn’t surprise me at all.

***

Sitting in a grimy pub when sober is depressing. It’s just a bad idea. Especially when the barmaid has a vendetta against you and gives your pint a three inch head that stops a good six centimetres before the top of the glass. In the five and a half hours I’ve spent in here since leaving work, this is what I have learnt.

It’s not all I’ve learnt, oh no. I’ve learnt that the jukebox sticks if you put Bruce Springsteen on. Which, all things considered, is probably for the best. I’ve learnt that Reg The Builder hails from Portsmouth. And is proud of it too. I've learnt that the main problem with the Liverpool starting line-up is – according to Hairy Brian – the reliance on an anchoring midfielder to go forward, as opposed to driving in crosses from the by-line. I was quite tempted to point out that the main problem with the Liverpool team is that they all share the same haircut, so passing the ball must get a tad confusing, but I was afraid that something stupid and garbled would come out. Telling Hairy Brian he’s only good for one thing, for example. That kind of thing. I've also, most disturbingly, learnt that Bertha the Scowling Barmaid’s bra is a 36D black lace number that apparently offers lacklustre support.

I hate this place, but I like it as well. It’s the only place I can go for noise and human contact that doesn’t involve me taking my trousers off or getting a sore jaw. People with their small talk, they just drone on like white noise and fill your head with the inane, drowning out your own thoughts. My own thought.

The picture of his face as he walked out the door this morning.

I knew I could do that. Pick the one loose thread that makes the whole thing unravel, choose words designed to hurt. Knew it. They shouldn’t allow people to possess this capacity to hurt. They only use it.

The short arsed mumbly little fucker nicked my phone. And my three mint humbugs. And my last four pound thirty seven. And my last cigarettes. Didz tried to make me give him a blow job for twenty quid this morning, so I could get a bus to work, but I told him I’d sooner walk.

When I was sixteen I just wanted to be thin. Nothing else. Not smart or popular or blonde or a better seamstress. Just thin. I had a pot belly lingering where I wanted only flat. I had cheeks you could pinch instead of slithers of bone. I had blank white skin flecked with moles where I wanted to be plain. I wanted my ribs to press against my skin. I wanted the flush to leave my lips because it was of no use anyway. No one came near. I figured that if I gave people a reason to stay away then that might make it better.

I wish I had that now. I miss that blinkered desire to be only one thing. Where everything was essential and nothing really mattered.

Where I wasn't an idiot who lashed out at anyone that dared get too close. Push them away just so they can’t see. I repelled them at a distance then. No one got by, not one got in. No one saw my hesitation: everyone just backed away, the second I blinked or let them know that I needed to take so much from them, just to know that I’m okay. That there’s nothing really wrong. No one saw the arch of my back as my shoulders slouched, gripping a sink for dear life, and being too terrified of the emptiness in my eyes and the desperation in my face to look in the mirror full-on.

I was happier when no one saw.

No one ever comes back when they see.

The bell tolls for last orders. It rings round my skull. I’m still surprised, after all the times I’ve been thrown out of here, by the dead noise of that bell. Sounds dull, flat, blunt. Like it’s suffocating, one day at a time.

***

Silence doesn’t scare me. It’s funny; you would’ve thought it would do. But there are so few nights when the night air is so still you can taste it, you have to treasure them. Such a rare thing and so easy to ruin, you’ve got to look all around and not stare at the ground. As if you’re nothing, really, and nothing you do matters, you can just get lost and pretend that you’re alone in the world, with nowhere to be except spinning with the stars for the rest of your life.

My black suit blends in with the sky; just the white of my skin and my shirt letting me down, keeping me chained to the ground.

Something moves out of the shadows, across the road from me.

Black leather.

My heart slams in my chest. Black leather only ever means one thing.

Street Boy.

I catch him there, out the corner of my eye, stumbling and cursing down at the slanting concrete beneath his feet. I catch him there. I keep him there, on the very edges of my sight. So if he goes again, I won’t see him leave. He’ll just be gone.

My skin shivers.

I freeze underneath the lamppost, thankful the bulb’s gone and burnt out. The sky’s not quite black tonight. It’s that midnight blue that’s got magic dotted through it; like it’s daring you to believe it’s something as plain as black. And it’s only on second glance that you see the faint traces of light that cast out the clouds and paint the sky that dangerous shade. Where the silence and stillness seem to go on forever, and it’s like you’re alone with all the histories trapped in the globe, waiting to be unspun, free from the glare of the sun.

“Fucking – fuck – fuck it – fuck…”

I suppress a smile that Street Boy is trying to tug onto my face as he kicks out at a wonky paving slab and showers it with venomous curses.

His hair’s a bit longer than I remember. Skin a bit paler. Like he got lost in my mind in between this morning and now.

He flicks his hair out his face, snapping his head up from glowering at the floor. I wonder if all the hairs on the back of his neck are standing on tiptoe, betraying my eyes as they watch.

His eyes meet mine.

Everything. Stops.

“Carl…”

My voice cracks, gets louder in the night. My vocal chords know I’ve got no right to be speaking, that I’ve got nothing to say. It’s a warning, that snap in my voice, smearing the word into something beyond a name. Telling me that silence is golden. Not to speak. Never to speak. Because words come out and then consequences come calling, and all the felonious words have run away before the consequences arrive, leaving no way back and no way out. There should be some way to hold Language in your hands, palms up to the sky, letting all the Words fly to you like birds, bringing sense with them.

For a moment, I think he’s going to run. Or just snarl and walk away. For a moment, I think he thinks he is too. But he doesn’t. We just stand there, a pavement apart. Saying nothing, the velvet blue of the sky curling over the creases in the well-worn leather of his jacket.

He looks both ways before crossing the street toward me, even though there’s no sound of traffic, nothing around. Stands in front of me, eyes moving from the still sign of the pub where it hangs from the wall, then back up to me, then back down to the floor. I don’t move a muscle. My nose is cold.

I hope he doesn’t punch me. I can’t hit back. It’s like being hit with an especially bony marshmallow. And he’ll have his knife. I bet his fingers are wrapped round it in preparation. I’m done for. A goner. I’d stab me if I’d said what I said this morning to me.

I need to say sorry. Nothing else. Just sorry.

I mean it, too.

“You’ve got my phone…”

The words pop out my mouth before I can check them for apologies.

“Don’t.”

He scuffs at the concrete.

“It didn’t just walk out of Didz’s flat of its own accord, y’know, think I might’ve noticed…”

I don’t care about my phone. It has no nine key. It fell off a while ago. Took it as a sign that, no matter what problematic situation I’m in, calling the police for help will not prove to be the solution. I don’t care about my phone. Yet here I am, talking about my phone. If the next words out my mouth are about the weather or mint humbugs, I’m gonna fish that knife out his pocket and put it in his hand for him.

Street Boy shrugs.

“Sold it.”

Charming.

I shut my mouth. To stop more nonsense flying out. Just look over the roofs of the houses opposite at the odd dots of stars, trying not to hear my own voice ringing round my head, saying ‘you’re only good for one thing’ over and over again.

He’s still looking at me when I look back.

“Were you waiting for me?”

He scuffs at the concrete, focusing on his shoe as it kicks back and forth.

“No.” He chances a half-glance up at me, checking for my reaction. “Yes.”

My heart takes a leap. It’s premeditated. He’ll get longer for that. He doesn’t look as if he’s furious though. More like he’s here in spite of himself.

“Really?”

I don’t want to give him chance to snatch it back, but I can’t quite believe it’s true.

“Yes.”

Street Boy looks like he can’t believe it’s true either.

He inches closer.

“You been waiting long?”

Makes it sound like I’m the knackered old 73 bus, trundling down the road, predictably late and surprisingly present.

“Only since I saw you go in.”

“I went in at five.”

He looks at me. Pins any other words I might be about to say in place with a look. I still don’t move.

He steps closer to me, the end of his shoes stepping slightly over mine. I don’t mind one bit. Too close is never close enough. Street Boy looks up at me, eyes glistening with dark and lips held slightly apart, hair hanging down over his face.

My hand scares off that gap between the slightly curling strands of hair and his neck, drawing him closer. My thumb touches his cheekbone, feels the faint tremor of fear in his skin. He tilts his head back, eyes lowering almost shut, lips apart. His fingers curl round the sleeve of my suit jacket, twisting it in his hand, like the occasional touch of white shirt is as close to my skin as he’ll dare get. I draw him closer, with the greatest of ease, as if every part of him wants to drown in the contact of skin and the nervous gasps of breath that I can’t trap between my lips. The promises I don’t know if I can ever keep but I’m only too willing to make.

The first time our lips touch, I can feel him recoil, like the sparks dancing beneath the surface are shocking him back. My hand wants to tighten around him, keep him there, but I won’t let it. The more you try to restrain something, the more it wants to get free. He softens again, falls into my touch, reaches up with his mouth and the faintest touch is enough. It’s always enough. He’s scared again, like he was the last time, of giving rather than simply letting them take. His heart’s frantic under my hand and his fingers are shaking on my arm. But he comes closer, nose brushing against mine as lips meet again. The kiss is shy, scared. What it has to be. To plunder and conquer and take ‘cause you can is nothing, not anything in comparison to this. Anticipation crackles in the air all around, but patience is there, keeping us in line.

Every time his skin touches mine, I feel dizzy. The lips against mine, the soft pale stretch beneath my hand.

And it’s freezing out here, suppressing shivers in the dark, but I can’t honestly think of ever wanting to leave. Just stay here, caught between hesitation and desire, kissing beneath that broken down light, only the stars to watch. Just us two apart.

***  
My hand is starting to cramp.

When I was fifteen, whenever I kissed anyone, there was none of that surrendering-to-the-sensations lark. I was an engineer, inspecting a malfunctioning machine. Too much teeth, too much nose, stop dragging your bloody tongue over their fillings, don’t bite them, don’t bite them, don’t bite – bugger. But after some time and some mouths, you get better, stop panicking. It’s natural, and then volts start to flicker away in your tongue instead of stabs of fear and analysis. Sometimes you forget everything else. Kissing Carl is like that. The smell of his hair fills my lungs, the taste of his mouth, metallic and hungry, drains my senses. His skin and hair and lips and body all merge into one as they press against mine, leaving only this collection of want that I’m lucky enough to cling on to.

So it’s bloody unfair that my brain still cares enough to bother with insignificant details such as my hand is starting to cramp. My brain belongs to me, right? How does it not understand that I don’t care if my hand drops off? As long as Carl doesn’t notice my hand’s dropped off, or at least doesn’t care, then all is well with the world. I’ll get a hook fitted so I can tear his clothing to shreds. And an eye patch. He might look better through one eye. Seeing him with both eyes open is like staring down two barrels of a gun.

No one ever died from hand cramp.

Except, the minute I notice things like that, I can’t get them out of my head. They swell in my mind like a virus, until something I don’t care about becomes all I care about.

When wiggling my fingers becomes a higher priority than the sensation of wicked desire that flares every time his tongue flickers out at my lips, I’m definitely starting to wonder whether the Universe is on an almighty mission to piss on my bonfire.

I move my hand from where it’s been languishing, doing nothing but basking in the proximity to him. Steal his trick; curl my fingers round the sleeve of his jacket, fingering the leather before darting out, once, to touch his skin. My hand doesn’t linger against his skin for too long. Just inandout. Feeling dizzy from the thrill and scared that he’ll realise.

My teeth bite at his lip. They do that when they think I won’t notice. Street Boy moans into my mouth.

I bite harder.

My fingers sneak into the gap of his sleeve, brushing over the veins and skin in his wrist, his heart pounding. I think I can almost hear it in my ears. Fingers move back and forth, trying to trap the sensation in my fingertips. The twitching skin around his veins, the way the skin feels like I'm the first person to ever touch it. The way every so often there’s the slither of fault underneath my fingers, the brief indent of a scar, and I have to touch it again and again just to check it’s really there.

That kind of lust for destruction scares me. But I get it, in a way. Because you can hate your skin, because it’s not your heart. The skin’s just the shell. Like things burning up in the corona of the sun while the star still flames away.

Those seconds when you’re completely powerless are intoxicating. When you’re spinning a coin and it starts to slow, and there’s nothing it can do but fall.

I can tell I’m pushing my luck, touching him like this. No one touches like this. Contact is for sex and/or support when drunk. Or violence. Foreplay is a luxury that people can rarely afford. Especially when it’s pointless. The end result is to come, which is achieved by sheer mechanics. A hand/mouth here, a moan of approval there, and its All Systems Go. People don’t touch just for skin on skin. They just don’t.

The coin falls.

The arm my fingers are straying down snaps away. His body tenses, battening down the hatches and locking me out again. His head jerks and lips whip away from mine.

There’s total confusion on his face. Rapidly being replaced by fear.

"Please…" He’s stolen my cracking voice from me, but some of it got lost in translation, as it’s so quiet now "– please don’t make me do this."

"What?"

"Please."

His stark blue eyes do terrified well.

"I’m not making you do anything!"

I can’t make anyone do anything. I can’t make Mary-from-work’s nasal hair stop intimidating me. I can’t make Julian realise that photocopying his arse and sticking them up round the office isn’t the wisest idea. I can’t make my socks stay in pairs in my sock drawer. I can’t be making him do anything he doesn’t want to do.

Can I?

He’s back to kicking at the concrete again.

"Just – fuck off."

"You fuck off! I was here first!"

I fold my arms and look the other way, jaw clenched and trying to occupy all the space my six-foot-odd height entitles me to.

Carl creeps closer to me in my peripheral vision, stretching until he’s leaning right up into my face. It’s impossible to turn away when his breath is skittering across my face. It’s like the air conspires against us, dragging us closer when every shred of sense is screaming that we’d be far better apart. I turn to face him. For a second, the closeness gets the better of him, too; his face softens, lips part, eyelashes lower his eyes to my mouth. He almost lets himself succumb to it. Almost.

His resolve is stronger than mine will ever be, and I flinch with the snarl of his voice:

"Fine."

He’s walking away from me before I can even splutter a response. This is ridiculous. Damned if I’m letting him have the good exit. I refold my arms and try to lean against the lamppost nonchalantly. Only it moves, leaving me stumbling sideways and Street Boy’s cruel snicker of laughter making my cheeks flush red.

"Fuck off!"

Shouting obscenities after him and sticking two fingers up at his scowling back isn’t half satisfying.  
His footsteps retreat into the dark, mocking me as their echo gets fainter and fainter.

Shit.

How the fuck did this happen?


	7. Chapter 7

It is snowing and it is March.

I’m fairly sure those two facts aren’t allowed in the same sentence together. The Met Office kills for slanders on their weather map like that. March is supposed to be a bit rainy, a bit sunny. Not quite in with the drip, drip, drop and an April shower lark, not quite the misery of February.

It is snowing and it is March and I am walking in it, getting slush drinking round my shoes.

I try tricking my brain into not thinking about Street Boy. Being huddled into a corner somewhere, smoking a dampened cigarette that splutters smoke into his lungs, shivering with cold in his leather jacket as the wind exploits the gaps around his collar and waist. Sadly, my brain is not to be fooled. Yesterday it was brilliantly sunny. I got my Ray Bans out. Well, they’re not actually Ray Bans – I got them from a shop in Blackpool when I went one day last autumn, purely for the hell of it. I watched the lights of the Illuminations from behind dark glass, imagining I was in a limousine, and that every shout was an echo of my name. But when it was brilliantly sunny, yesterday, my brain would not be tricked into not thinking about Street Boy lounging in a doorway, reclining back on one arm, lazily slicing up a red apple with his flick knife and biting the pieces off the blade.

It is snowing and it is March and I am walking in it, getting slush drinking round my shoes, as I walk towards the pub.

They should really install a conveyor belt from the front door of my flat, to work, then to the pub, then back to my flat. They should also make a miniature one I can rest my hands on as they go through the motions of typing and working. If they could create a loop for my brain that is devoid of everything aside from the things required for mundane functions, I’d be most grateful.

It is snowing and it is March and I am walking in it, getting slush drinking round my shoes, as I walk towards the pub, thinking about how I haven’t spoken to anyone, except to exchange necessary work-talk, since I last saw Street Boy.

Didz hasn’t called. His assistant left a voicemail on my work phone, informing me that ‘Mr Hammond will be unable to make your arranged appointment at lunch tomorrow, due to unforeseen circumstances. If you would like to reschedule, please call extension 5474 and coordinate a more appropriate time with his personal assistant.’

Dumping people in the modern era is nowhere near as chivalrous as it used to be. The fact that we didn’t even have a lunch appointment makes it sting more. I heard through the office grapevine (commonly known as AngelaAmyAnneAnnaAndAnastacia, the five-headed Hydra from the hell of personal assistant-ing) that the Didz has whisked Kate-wench off on a spontaneous break to somewhere that’s all Wuthering and Heightsy. AAAAA think he’s a brilliant boyfriend. They also suspect him to be rather well endowed. One out of two isn’t bad. They also feel that GHD hair products are not as good as protecting their hair from frizzing as Pantene. They also – though I have not confirmed this – will probably feel that a certain P. Doherty should learn to not hide in the loos for such extended periods of time, so as to avoid all human contact. And learn tasty titbits about the female psyche through overhearing toilet-talk. Something to distract. Anything to distract. I painted my initials in a small graffiti heart on the back of the toilet door, just to see what they’d look like. Then crossed them out because they were wrong. Just wrong.

It is snowing and it is March and I am walking in it, getting slush drinking round my shoes, as I walk towards the pub, thinking about how I haven’t spoken to anyone, except to exchange necessary work-talk, since I last saw Street Boy, which was two days ago.

I know where he’s been. Back in the arms of that bloke. His friend. The bloke. He’ll deserve him. He’ll have taken him off, out of the snow and out of the sun. He’ll have taken Street Boy to some five star hotel. The bloke will be saying things to Street Boy about staying there forever. And ever. And getting married. And having lots of babies. Probably by Kate-wench. And they’ll call them all Kate-wench-Junior, Street-Boy-Junior and Bloke-Junior. And then they’ll train them up like the Von Trapp family. And they’ll sing all those Judy Garland songs we never got round to. And then Didz will be lonely and go and live with them in their massive house with their triple bed, and be like some pervy uncle who grabs Kate-wench and Street Boy’s arses when Bloke isn’t looking. And Stan and Julian will probably go live next door to them so Stan can prey on Street Boy, and Bloke too, because they both look like his type – i.e. they stand still long enough and they wear trousers. And Jules will probably buy a cat that him and Didz will love unconditionally.

It is snowing and it is March and I am walking in it, getting slush drinking round my shoes, as I walk towards the pub, thinking about how I haven’t spoken to anyone, except to exchange necessary work-talk, since I last saw Street Boy, which was two days ago, right underneath this lamppost here, with the cracked bulb.

You know, it’s amazing what you can become when your back is turned.

For example, one day you can just be you. Then the next you might decide that going to a fancy dress party as Snow White is a good idea. Then that same evening, you might end up with your English teacher with his hand down your boxers and a vodka and cranberry clasped in your hand that you’re trying desperately not to spill. Then the next day, you might find yourself waking up in the back seat of a red Ford Mondeo, lipstick smudged around your face and Snow White headband nowhere to be seen, as the leering face of your English teacher smiles down at you through the window. Then you might find yourself falling asleep at school, with your head firmly embedded in ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, because you necked some will-make-you-drowsy-as-a-dormouse cough medicine to try and stop your arse and jaw from aching. And you might be thankful for the chance to sleep in class, because it means you don’t have to peer out the window or at the blackboard to pretend that you don’t see the leer flicker in Wolfman’s eyes. The leer that became embedded in there at that same point last night, when he purred your surname into your ear and ceased to be just your English teacher.

You might even be sat in your office one day, then see this chance of something out the corner of your eye. You might just turn for a closer look. You might want to get closer. Eventually you get so close you’d swear that’s where you’d always been.

Funny: you might notice that you were you all along, and that not quite close enough is where you’ll always be.

It is snowing and it is March and I am walking in it, getting slush drinking round my shoes, as I walk towards the pub, thinking about how I haven’t spoken to anyone, except to exchange necessary work-talk, since I last saw Street Boy, which was two days ago, right underneath this lamppost here, with the cracked bulb, its consistency mocking me: though it doesn’t look right now, without Carl there underneath it, creeping closer to me. Doesn’t look right at all.

***

I slide a fiver over the oak bar top and wait for the pint to slide back. Again, another thing that would benefit from conveyor belts. Bertha would not be missed. Not even by her mother. The BerthaMother seemed most put out that I would not be returning to her homestead for the evening as a result of Bertha’s disapproval.

I turn and survey the scene. To my left: Hairy Brian, holed up in the corner where he holds court. Gormless Ian, his jester, laughing ceaselessly along with his jokes and supplying the necessary chants of ‘fucking hell!’ ‘bollocks!’ and ‘her tits were fuckin’ massive!’ as and when needed. Reg The Builder is absent today, but his chair has been usurped by Pearl The Corner Lurker, who has ventured out from behind the cig machine in the corner to sit in full view of the public, sequinned top glinting with the desire to take any man who’ll have her home with her tonight. To my right: Well, Bertha’s finishing off a Lambert and Butler with a suitable side-order of malice, whilst studiously avoiding looking at me. I miss the other barmaid. She was nice. Didn’t want to kill me. Which is always a bonus of sorts.

My entire body jumps to attention then freezes there.

I blink. I blink again. And again. Third time lucky.

He’s still there. Just leaning there, from his barstool at the end of the bar, elbows crooked and hands holding his head up like its world-weary, dwindling pint in front of him and long-discarded whiskey chaser at his side. Just sat there like he hasn’t done anything wrong, leather jacket discoloured under the light. Faded and torn; all the trademarks of a second-hand jacket. Buying into someone else’s history in order to embellish your own.

The urge to punch him is overwhelming.

No. Restrain fists. A night in casualty is not what the doctor ordered, not by a long stretch.

Besides, he hasn’t actually done anything wrong.

I hesitate for a moment. Or two. Or nine. I can’t tell. My eyes are burning, but they can’t bring themselves to look away, just in case he vanishes back into the recesses of my mind. I hesitate. Hesitating is the new black. Yes. I am a style icon, see. I know these things.

The temperature of my blood dials up a notch.

Oh shite alive he’s looking at me. Bugger, bugger, bugger.

He frowns.

 

I swallow loudly and slope down the bar towards him, dragging my fiver with me, as if keeping my fingers firmly on Ol’ Lizzie’s head will stop me doing something stupid. Like hitting him. I swallow loudly and slope down the bar towards him.

The bloke. Street Boy’s friend.

"Do I know you?"

Don’t punch him. Do not punch him. You’ll only miss and fall over. You do not want to make a complete twat out of yourself. Do not punch him. It’s not his fault he gets to touch and talk to and kiss Street Boy whenever he chooses. Do not punch him.

The bloke’s eyes have a slightly concerned quality about him, as if I’m about to eat his head. Cannibalism is not my forte, don’t worry.

I force myself to blink.

 

"You waiting for Carl?"

Someone Velcroed the syllables to the back of my throat and now I have to tear them off. His name is the hardest one of all.  
'Bloke’s face softens into a smile. The knowledge that if circumstances were different, I’d be desperately trying to get into his jeans (or get him out his jeans – no one ever called me fussy) by now, does not make the process of talking to him any easier. The opposite, in fact. It makes it worse because 'Bloke' isn’t three foot taller than Street Boy, 'Bloke' doesn’t look like he’d tell Street Boy he’s worthless and to fuck off, 'Bloke' looks like he’d never be anything but nice and attractive. Who’d pick me over nice and attractive? Who’d pick any of this over nice and attractive? Nice and attractive doesn’t leave you with this insistent dull ache round the sad sack of your heart. This feeling like a storm’s been brewing in there, swallowing all the memories you’d thought you’d forgotten, using them to man the defences in your chest, only to realise that the danger isn’t in anyone else breaking in; its all of that breaking out.

It’s easy to stifle people within your heart, within your mind. Just squash them into the dark corners, get Happiness (however temporary, however flawed, however chemical…) to sit on the suitcase of memories until it snaps shut. Until every magazine letter no longer spells their name, until you don’t get that pang in your chest anymore. It’s hard to let someone in, you see, because you know they’re always going to be there, hiding, waiting to get out. But everyone knows how to lock them away, everyone knows. My Nan knits like a demon and drinks strong tea that discolours her dentures. Works like a charm. Got her over two deceased husbands, that method, and she’s still going strong.

But when it’s you stuffed away in there, kicking out the walls and screaming for release, it gets stronger with time. It claws away at you. Terrified of being kept in, terrified of being let out. Street Boy draws that part out of me. Taunts it with the notion that he’s the same.

Nice and attractive doesn’t do that.

 

"Yeah, yeah I am. You a friend of his?"

Nice and attractive and Irish?

 

I’m doomed to a life of lonely celibacy. My right hand might not even have me back, the neglect it’s been getting recently.

I wish Street Boy was here instead. Talking to 'Bloke' is just twisting in the knife.

I smile wryly.

"Yeah, you could say that."

You could also technically say I stalk him. Or rather, stalked him. It’s not so much of a hobby of mine anymore. Now I just offend him. Use him, to his mind. Take what I can, when I can, then show him the door. Street Boy would never understand that it was because I needed him to stay so much that I had to make him go.  
'Bloke' nods.

"M’Drew, by the way…"

I don’t need to know his name. 'Bloke' shrugs. The rise of his shoulders knocks the chisel that’s carving the name into my memory, makes it cut extra deep. The kind of deep you can never plaster over with drink and consolatory, angry, wanking. Putting names to faces is worse, always worse, than just knowing their face. Faces can merge slightly in the memory, features soften and blur and get tailor-made until you can see yourself in everyone. Names are hard, all angular consonants that can’t be whittled down. All noise that still means the same, no matter how soft or slight you say it, breath drawn in lips like nerves can be chased away by oxygen alone.

Drew. Carl. Didz. Stan. Pete.

The world can fit into four letter one syllable names. And it still doesn’t get any simpler. Hurts a little bit more. If words were darts, then those long polysyllabic ones that waltz with your tongue are arrows from a bow, all elegance and flowing grace. The four letter Mafia are bullets, dull in their own right, but far more effective.

Where is my bloody pint? My soul is parched.

"Pete."

My smile strangles my mouth.

"How d’you know Carl then?"

 

Well, see, I spied him out my window and then proceeded to eventually pluck up the courage to buy him, only for him to refuse me on the grounds that he’s seventeen. Which, clearly, given the fact that you’re easily twenty-five, is a problem you and I can both overcome. And then one night I got off my face and discovered that there’s this… thing… behind all the sharp angles that make you drool and render you speechless. This thing that’s terrifying and devastating and magic, like the static in the air before a storm. This thing that captures you. Then, well. The shit hath hitteth the fan, as Shakespeare once wrote. I’m seeing this guy, Didz – sorry, was seeing – bought Carl for me for my unbirthday. And it was just… gnnnurrghgh. And then Carl kissed me under that streetlight outside, left me undone, and now I can’t think of anything else.

Except maybe how I loathe every fibre of your being.

Ahem.

"Oh… just saw him around, got speaking to him one day…"

(…when I tried to buy him for the hour…)

"…you know, everyone gets to know everyone eventually, when they live in towns like this…"

(…because, naturally, who wouldn’t try and buy him in a town like this? He’s from another dawn, that boy, another time completely…)

"…you just get talking, get to know people."

(…and nothing creates a bond like a bloody awful fish tattoo and an argument about how much your boyfriend charges.)

'Bloke' smiles.

"What you drinking?"

Holy fuck. He’s got a tongue stud.

Tongue stud. How can I compete with nice and attractive and Irish and a tongue stud?

"Carling." I say, defeated. I hate Carling. It tastes like dishwater. It always trips off my tongue when I don’t think about my reply. Could be worse. Could be cider. I passed that point in my youth where White Lightning and Benson and Hedges seem like wise accessories to go with any outfit.

 

I’m not meant to compete with Drew. I’m not. If I was, Street Boy wouldn’t have run and I wouldn’t have pulled the trigger on the starting gun.

Drew smiles.

I wish he’d stop doing that. His happiness makes it harder for me to hate him.

I need to hate him.

He raises his eyebrows at Bertha, who comes waddling over to meet him instantly. Even Bertha’s on his side. How is this fair?

I hold out my fiver. He bats it away.

"Don’t be stupid, I’ll get ‘em."

If I was a boa constrictor, I could eat him whole, tongue stud n’all.

Bertha smiles as he orders. Drew doesn’t even cower. I bet he loves Street Boy. Really. Not even the half-hearted, I’ll-shag-you-‘cause-you’re-fit love that you sometimes get. I could hate him if it was that, but I bet it isn’t. I bet Drew’s heart swells with nothing but pure joy every time Street Boy enters the room, and that he loves him unconditionally. Not in spite of his job. Not in spite of himself.

Fucking 'Bloke'.

***

"So… Drew…"

My arm flung itself round Drew’s neck some time ago. He seems to be taking this all in the stride of friendly camaraderie, rather than the murderous urge that overtook me around pint number three and is waiting for the courage that pint number five will summon to bring itself up to a nice boil.

"…How d’you do it?"

I should note that, following three and a half pints of Carling, three things occur:

One: my bladder feels like its being put through some form of torture. Like I’m shackled round the ankles by my own laziness, and the equivalent of the Nile (in weak, watery lager) is gushing through my digestive system and a giant panda is slowly lowering itself into my lap. Bladder. Torture.

Two: half my brain becomes obsessed with distracting my bladder from how full it is.

Three: the other half of my brain is so weakened by Carling fatigue that I am only able to focus on one thing.

Today, my one thing is not killing Drew. This means that my mouth is being given free run to do as it pleases. And, like that stereotypical orca released from Sea World back into the ocean, once it has swum around a bit and chased a few salmon, it goes straight in for the kill.

Drew blears at me;

"How do I do what?"

 

I narrowly miss his head as I swing my pint glass for gesticulation purposes.

"Y’know… Carl…"

"How do I do Carl?"

Drew giggles. Giggling plays havoc with my mind. Havoc.

No. Hate Drew. Drew Bloke. Bloke evil.

Rage bubbles in its cauldron, spilling over into my veins.

"No… c’mon… I mean… with his job n’everything… how d’you just… ignore it?"

Drew frowns.

"What d’you mean?"

"Well, d’you not get jealous of the other blokes?"

The word bloke is on an automatic sneer list in my brain. Drew seems taken aback by my fury. That’s right. You be scared.

"If my –"

I can’t say boyfriend, it’ll scratch my throat right out.

"– Carl was shagging other blokes for a living, then I’d get a bit… paranoid."

A bit paranoid? A bit? I’d slip a tracker device into his food when he wasn’t looking and train a pack of wild dogs – and quite possibly Jules – to spy on him. As he isn’t my Carl, I can just silently seethe to myself and sink further and further into the fear in my mind, ta very much.

Drew’s face crumples into shock in a way that’s none-too-attractive.

"What other blokes? From the bar?"

"Bar? What bar? I dunno if they’re from a bar; just from wherever they approach him, I s’pose. He’s got a fair few regulars by now."

"Regulars?"

I nod.

"Yeah, I can see him from my office, leading them up the fire escape into that burnt-out building."

Drew’s face is now in shellshock territory. What the fuck? He can’t object to a simple bit of spying, not in comparison to…

Realisation dawns on us both at the same time. It’s eerie. For a moment we are united, but I can smell fission in the air.

"Carl…"

He swallows.

"He shags…"

And again.

"For a living?"

A simple nod is all it takes to leave us both in silence again, all at the hands of one Street Boy and my ruinous mouth.

***

I’d make a crap fugitive. I’m so damn twitchy. I couldn’t sleep last night. The weatherman said there would be ‘unseasonable gales during the night, that would hopefully help clear the current unpredictable weather system and bring more sunshine for us all’. The weatherman at no point mentioned the fact that the unseasonable gales would make my windows rattle. The windows’ rattle makes the same noise as Street Boy as he shuffles along in those too-big shoes. Try sleeping at night when you’re entertaining the possibility of Street Boy unleashing all that anger upon you. Dark eyes glinting in the night. It’s impossible.

And I slid my computer up as far as it would go on my desk, so I could slide my chair three inches away from the window and become invisible to the world outside my window. I fished out my extensive hat collection and stuffed a balaclava into my jacket pocket, in case I need a disguise. Then realised wearing a balaclava is never a smart idea. Then stuffed a red beret in there for good measure, as I’m sure the world would be both flummoxed and charmed by my magnifique grasp of le Francais. I can say ‘une kilo des pomme, si vous plait’. And I know that ‘monkey’ is ‘singe’. I could ask for a kilo of monkey to spice things up a bit, but I’m not sure how far that’d get me when I’m on the run.

I should run. He'll be after me. Revenge.

It wasn't good enough for me to ruin my own chance, oh no, I had to go and wreck someone else’s too.

Street Boy will think I've done it on purpose. Told Bloke what he does. About the other blokes.

I almost wish I had done it on purpose. Been brilliant and scheming and cruel enough to know that Bloke was oblivious and that telling him about Street Boy’s Street Life would extinguish that content-with-the-Universe glow Bloke had better than a sodding bucket of cold water. That would at least have made me a schemer. Machiavellian. The end justifying the means and all that. Instead, I am just a prat who can’t hold his weak lager and fails – quite spectacularly – to take a hint.

How could Bloke not have known, though? How could he have missed the marks and the anger the people who use him leave behind? You can see something twisting through Carl; something more vicious and insidious than boredom or frustration. It’s a strand of weariness so thick, so leaden with being tired of the world, that he can’t even notice the endless potential he’s got to fight back. Something you get from knowing you’ve got all you’re ever going to get and trying to convince yourself that it’s enough.

When I see the teenage schoolgirls skiving off school and carving (hopefully not life-size) images of ‘Aarons’ cock’ into the bus shelter on a Monday morning, cigs in hand and skirts so short they make me feel indecent for even focusing my eyes within a two metre radius of them, I can see them in my mind. I can picture the cigarette smoke chasing into their young lungs, latching onto them and cackling with glee as their faces wizen and their breath shortens. I can see their fingers turning yellow with nicotine and their mouths sagging and I can see them, fifty odd years from now, coughing as they queue up for their pensions. I can see it all.

Took me a while to cotton on that it’s easier to see your own flaws in someone else. Wonder if Street Boy’s realised that too. Wonder if he knows that’s why he terrifies me, completely terrifies me.

***

“FUCKING BASTARD!”

Getting punched in the nose by Street Boy isn’t as fun as you might expect.

“BASTARD!”

Oh dear God, it feels like my brain is dripping down my face.

“FUCKING – BASTARD!”

And like my eyes are receding into my skull to hide from the pain.

“BASTARD!”

And like a too-big, too-scuffed shoe just kicked down the door of my ribs and is grinding my heart into the dirty carpet.

All I did was come into the pub after work. Knew I should’ve gone home. Knew it. I only came because Jules wanted to meet me, said he hasn’t seen me in ages. Which isn’t true. As far as I’m aware, I’m still trapped in the Dark Age of my life. No progress onto Middle Age yet. Black Death will have to wait, I’m afraid.

And Street Boy just had to be there, didn’t he? It’s like something out of a cheap farce; these occasions where Lady Luck is on someone else’s side and leaving Fate alone to conspire against me.

Didn’t even get chance to have a bloody drink before he launched himself at me. I just stood there, too in awe of the flurry of black leather and snarling lips and grotesque sneer scowling in those malevolent blue eyes, to move. Stood there, in awe, as I got smacked in the face.

I move my hands up round my head to shield myself, curl up and try and work out how to stop my brain dripping into my mouth, because it doesn’t taste very nice. I’d always expected it to taste like overcooked cauliflower, because it looks like one. Like elephants taste like marshmallow. Stars taste like sherbet. Swamps taste like minestrone soup. Stupid soup.

“Fucking… bastard…”

Street Boy’s voice is stealing my tone, all winded and defeated.

“Bastard…”

It splinters right through me.

I curl deeper into the side of the bar, into the floor, sink through it till it swallows me whole and lets me hide in the caverns of its gut. Street Boy won’t follow me here. He’s too pretty to be digested.

It’s quiet down here. Doesn’t smell that nice. Stale beer and ketchup and grease and tobacco. Maybe I’ve folded in on myself, just turned inside out. I bet I smell like that. I’ll become acclimatised eventually. Just curl up and sleep here, no one to get to me at all.

“OI!”

My spine jolts out my back at the sound of Bertha the Barmaid’s voice splitting through my head. Sturdy arms wrap around me and hoist me onto my feet. My feet don’t want to stand. Not today, Bertha. They’re being lazy. They want to lie down. Relax. Have a snooze.

“You two! OUT! You’re barred! You hear me? Not having this! Get out! NOW!”

Great, great, great; she’s letting go of me. Crumpling to the floor, a human scarecrow collapsing down. Ow. Ouch. It’s harder this time round, the floor. That’s not fair. It kicks me in the ribs too.

I slap it. Stupid floor.

I peer up at the world above me that doesn't concern me at all, confused like a child with sleepy eyes. Bertha’s standing over me, scowling at someone. Street Boy’s frantically straining in someone’s grasp as they hold his arms back, the skin of his shoulders starting to fray round his leather jacket, his collarbones thirsty to get to whoever it is he’s angry at. He’s stunning when he’s angry. All that smoulders just below the surface streams out of him in hails of curses that lick at my skin like venomous tongues full of promise. And he’s trying to claw it back, as if that much raw emotion scares him, only the stronger his defences get the weaker he gets, until his blue eyes glisten with hurt and hatred in equal measures, and he’s too terrified to move in case the wrong one leaps out.

Grr.

Someone’s put the world on slow-mo and turned the volume right down so I can sleep. How nice of them. Nice world.

“WOULD YOU GET OFF THE FLOOR? YOU’RE BARRED!”

Cruel world.

My lips let things tumble out from between them. Never was too good with my mouth. Didz finds it hilarious. Oh. Suppose Didz is past tense now. Found it hilarious. Oh.

“Bertha…please…quiet…justwantto…”

Damn bar moving when I try to reach out and lean on it for support.

Bertha’s having one of her larger-than-life days. She narrows her eyes into slits and I get squashed down with them.

“What did you just call me?”

“…Bertha…”

Bertha does a good snorting-bull impression. Her girth aids the illusion along, but she’s got the mannerisms down to a T. I am the red flag. I sway and spiral in the wind.

My brain’s drying on my face and it feels a bit scratchy and flaky on my skin when I breathe.

“Would you two GET OUT, NOW!”

A ‘please’ wouldn’t kill you, you know, Bertha love.

“NOW!”

It might actually; she’s practically bursting at the seams already.

Something pulls at me till I’m staggering out the door, sucking in cold air until I feel giddy. I used to smoke menthol cigarettes, because I liked how they made my throat feel like one hollow metal tube, stainless and steel. All crisp and clean. This air’s like that. The cold sinking into your bones makes you feel metallic, dulls the pain in my head. Air’s great, isn’t it? It just is.

Oh no.

The door swings open and shut again, spitting Street Boy back out onto the street.

We’re alone. And he wants to kill me. There are no witnesses around. Only me and him: my fear and his fury. I take a deep breath that freezes my lungs, and wait, listening to his violent breathing, for the rest of my body to be slashed and splattered across the concrete and dirt.

***

“How could you fucking tell him?”

Street Boy, I note, has never been one to shy away from confrontation. If God had spoken to Street Boy instead of Moses with that burning bush, Carl would’ve used the flames to light up a cig, offered up a bitter smile laced with gratitude, then told the Big Guy to fuck off.

Street Boy shoves me back against the wall, grinding my bones into the eroding brick and leaving me no place to escape. The fact someone so small can pin my hands up either side of my head is quite disconcerting, to say the least. The fact that he hasn’t even got his knife out yet is even more alarming.

“How could you not tell him?”

The words flop out my lips with more incredulity than I even possess.

“What? ‘Hope you don’t mind that I sell my arse to anyone willing to cough up the cash?’”

Ah, touché.

Bugger.

He leans in closer, back still arched so he doesn’t have to come into any more direct contact with me than necessary, scraping my knuckles against the wall as he forces himself closer, using me as leverage.

“Well, no, but something, surely? How could he not have noticed?”

And now my voice has moved onto whining. That breathy quality that is a bonus if you’re a female jazz singer and a complete turn-off if you’re a six-foot-two bloke.

It doesn’t even evoke pity by being pathetic, as all I get in return is a frustrated sneer.

“Don’t exactly wear a fucking sandwich board, do I?”

“No.”

Didz should sell his Overwhelming Grasp of Logic in bottles and give it a catchy name so I automatically order that instead of Carling.

“But what about the marks?”

Street Boy’s grip slackens as he considers my question, toying with the choice between stoking his anger and allowing confusion to conquer.

Confusion wins.

“Marks?”

I rotate my wrists around to check they’re still attached. His fingers are cold as handcuffs and will leave even bigger marks. He lets go completely, frowning in amusement at my fingers waggling in the air, and settles for letting his eyes pin me down instead. They work just as well. All those splinters of blue charging into the piercing black of his pupil, sucked into the gravity of that black hole as if its drawing in his soul, but more just keeps coming.

“Yeah, someone bit you back in January, right there,” I point at his neck, careful not to touch it, just in case, “You had a purple blotch there for weeks.”

His fingers stray absent-mindedly to the spot, stroking over it as if the pain still remains.

He shrugs.

“And when one of ‘em bent you over the railing at the top of the fire escape, you had this bruise that looked like you were wearing a cummerbund.”

I remember that day. It was when the initial flurry of pure arousal of seeing him lead those blokes along, and knowing what he did, subsided; when the guilty thrill of replacing the faceless strangers with myself in my mind vanished. That day when some bloke wrenched him up by his collar, pinned Street Boy in place with his weight, wrenched down his jeans and left his face hanging over in the dead air. I watched the black tendrils of his hair fly in the wind and jerk with the force of someone else’s pleasure, hoarse cries of obscenities fainting into my ears through the open crack of my window.

Street Boy smiles, starts to speak again, anger dressing up as sarcasm that suits him just as well.

“What ‘bout you? You fell off your chair that time, cracked the radiator.”

I blush.

“And you fell on your arse when there was that black ice next to where you wait for the bus. And you walked into the lamppost outside your work a few weeks ago.”

I am a bit of a spanner. Didn’t think anyone had noticed. Bugger.

“And you got your arm stuck in the post box until that brown-haired bloke came and pulled you out.”

Thought no one apart from Jules had witnessed that coup de grace. I was trying to reclaim a photo of me spooning with Jules (whilst being a tad unclothed) that I’d drunkenly decided to post to my mum the night before.

“You get into far more scrapes than me.”

A thought strikes me.

“Have you been watching me?”

He blushes and looks away.

“No.”

I look down at him from the corner of my eye, a tentative smile spreading across my face.

He randomly fires off a glare, a covering shot designed to draw enemy fire because I’m hitting too close to home. I take the bait; let my mouth lead the conversation astray from where he clearly doesn’t want it to go.

“That time you got into a fight with a bloke, he gave you a black eye.”

He smiles ruefully.

“That doesn’t happen very often, y’know, someone landing one on me.”

“’Can believe that. It feels like you’ve broken my face.”

I touch my nose gingerly as if to reaffirm my point. It’s fascinatingly sturdy following the punching. Normally it’s perturbing and squashy.

“Don’t be stupid. You can’t break your face.”

“Can.”

“Can’t.”

He looks as if every fibre of his body is dying to stick his tongue out at me, but is restraining it in favour of being cool. It has a strange effect on his demeanour. Like someone drew a moustache on the Mona Lisa. Great, but horrific.

“Well you gave it a bloody good shot, didn’t you?”

His eyes flick up to the damage he did, guiltily, before focusing back on the safe ground.

“…Sorry.”

The word is mumbled. He means it. He glances to see if I’m going to push the issue and watch him squirm until he’s no longer interested in forgiveness and wants to punch me again.

Not a chance.

“S’alright, should’ve learnt by now to keep my bloody mouth shut.”

He offers up a small half-smile, not quite to himself, but not quite ready to share. Cold fingers brush my cheek, gingerly, anticipating me flinching under his touch. I lean into it, let him angle my face so he can see what he did.

My nose must be glowing like a beacon. Great.

I love the rough tips of his fingers; the way the skin’s a bit worn so he has to touch just that bit harder to feel.

A finger trails along my jaw, dirty shade of his skin forming stark contrast with the white of mine. A bitten-down nail scratches softly down my neck.

“Sorry.”

His voice rasps quietly with too many cigarettes.

“S’ok.”

My voice does the same.

He stuffs his hands into his pockets, fingers brushing against the deadweight of his knife.

If he’s about to stab me, then that’s not fair. Not in the slightest. I am lulled into a false sense of security. It does not deserve to be broken. C’mon, God, please?

A wicked smile spreads across his face.

A wicked smile.

If now’s the time for my life to flash before my eyes, and repent for all my sins, then I either regret nothing, or regret too much to mention. If I come back as a ghost, I’ll tell my mum it’s the former, spare her an extra bit of heartache.

The smile’s spun its web into his eyes.

He’s actually going to kill me. Actually. Really. He is. He’s smiling at me like I’m prey.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh – no. No. Please? No.

“Pete…”

He smirks underneath his hair, voice a low growl.

Oh no. Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no.

I want to close my eyes. Don’t think anyone likes witnessing their own demise, really, if they’ve got the choice. But I don’t want him to sneak up on me. Suspense kills me. Not that death by suspense is any less favourable to death by Street Boy. Oh dear God. No.

“How much money you got on you?”

I frown.

He’s actually got the barefaced cheek to rob me before going in for the kill? The cheek. The bloody barefaced cheek.

“I, er, er, er…”

Don’t tell him, do not tell him. He wants your cash that badly, he’s going to have to rob a dead man. Let him live with that on his conscience.

My mouth, as per usual, disobeys;

“…Thirty quid?”

The smirk becomes fucking devilish. He steps closer. I try and crawl back through the wall. My survival instincts are honed. Honed. D’you hear me? Honed. Thus I do not deserve to die outside the pub, of all places.

His hands leave his pockets. I gulp. Loudly. Resist the urge to screw my eyes shut and turn away and start spouting pleas. I may not be above begging, but Street Boy doesn’t know that, and I’m not about to enlighten him about that fact just so he can have a bit of a giggle at me before going in for the kill.

His fingers reach out and toy with the button on my suit jacket like it’s the most fascinating thing on earth. Words mumble from out beneath his ragged black hair:

“Thirty gets you an hour.”

Huh?

What?

…What!?

Oh dear Lord is he saying what I think he’s saying?

“What…the…what…”

C’mon Doherty, grace under pressure…

“…What…the…what!?”

“Thirty. An hour.”

He smiles. Eyes fix into mine. The voltage in his eyes. Burns.

He turns away, sets off, hands shrugged back into his pockets, pulling his jacket taut over his back, shoulder blades slamming themselves against the leather. A line of skin trapped between his jeans and jacket, begging to be let out. Hair flowing as he walks. I flop back against the wall and just watch.

I can tell the moment when he realises he’s walking alone – his whole body stiffens, like someone turned his senses up a notch on their dial and they all peak at once. He turns back over his shoulder, twisting round to see me still stood there, the predatory spark in his eye still present but being dampened by me not walking behind him.

“You coming?”

There’s a nervous tremor wracking his mumble that I don’t like at all. That shouldn’t be there. I’m far too nervous for him to be nervous.

I look at him, taking it all in.

Unkempt waves of his hair, curling round his face. The complete lack of hard angles in his face, the subtle curve of his nose and the faint flash of a cheekbone that might not even be there. It shouldn’t be so easy to imagine such harsh emotion masking those features, not when they seemed to be made to hold a gratified smile. Nothing about him is as sharp as it should be, nothing stark or instantly intimidating about him, standing there, down the street from me. But there’s that veiled threat, hiding in the corners of his lips when they form a sneer, the straight lines his shoulders form as they square up inside his jacket. The defiant stance that usually has me weak at the knees. But there’s just this nervousness about him now. His eyes keep darting up to me, not meeting mine, then moving away. His bottom lip’s captured between his teeth, blanching it white and making the rest of it look redder.

His eyes pause for long enough on me to see that I’m looking at him. As if I could look anywhere else.

A shy smile creeps onto his face. His eyes light up, practically glowing blue, and mouth parts slightly. Like he’s finally allowing himself to show some happiness mixing in with anticipation, but is unsure if he’ll see it echoed on my face.

I nod, uselessly, a grin of pure wonder and disbelief dawning over my face. Pull myself off the wall and swallow the space he’s covered in a few stumbled strides. He flicks his hair back round and carries on walking. I bet he’s still smiling that smile underneath his hair. Hope he is.

I don’t know where he’s going. But I’ll follow. Damn right I will.


	8. Chapter 8

I’m nervous as a school kid about this. My legs are shaking as I walk. Walking is hard for me at the best of times. I’m an affront to gravity. It keeps dragging me down, tripping me up, punishing me for my genetics and being so damn tall. I think it’s an unfair battle, really, a mere mortal against some centripetal force. I keep losing. And my badly dented and constantly-purple knees feel the brunt of it, poor things. I just thank God that I never had the overwhelming desire to take up roller skating.

Actually, I’m not so much shaking as twitching. A lot.

That’s a desirable trait. Gisele Bunchen wishes she had twitchy shins.

Mine are currently snapping in seventeen different directions with every step I take. My feet are some sixteen feet below me, walking mechanically of their own accord – a jarring motion that sends shockwaves up my spine, since the rest of my body has forgotten trivial things like ground exists. Fingers flicker, darting everywhere, rubbing them against each other to relish the reality of the hard press of knuckles and flesh against each other as I squeeze my thumb and forefinger together. All my muscles are glowing. I can feel them. Shining, like petrol in the rain, scared of a spark.

Street Boy is inches away from me. Walking next to me. Walking with me.

All my face is capable of doing is blinking a lot and not looking at the same thing for too long, in case my eyes use it as an anchor and it drags me back down to the bottom of Life. Lips in a half smile. And I blink a lot. This may make me appear slightly mad – especially since my hair’s sticking up a bit, if the window reflection’s anything to go by, thanks to the ruckus in the pub. But a bit of madness never hurt anyone. Well, yes, it did, but, God, brain, can’t you even let me have this moment?

My brain eyeballs me with contempt. I blink a bit more.

And I don’t look at Street Boy. Oh no. That’d be silly. I can see these hissing angles of darkness, black leather and hair, out the far edges of my eyes. And that’s enough for me. Can smell his cigarette smoke – same brand as mine – and hear the shift of his shoulders underneath the jacket, the thud of his shoes. The hand hanging by his side, fingers held apart, swinging just slightly as he walks; every so often, the accidental crackles of static as anticipation bubbles in my skin, when our hands almost touch.

His breathing’s loud and heavy as always, but it keeps running away from him and I can see his resolve chasing after it, dragging his desire, his nerves, kicking and screaming back into nonchalance’s careful grip. The flick of his calloused fingers against the filter on his cigarette as he taps the ash off the end far too often, leaving a burning orange tip glowing, completely out of place in the bleached-out city sprawl around us. I can hear his skin against the denim as he walks, too. The bonds of thread as they strain, the soft pressure of his thighs wearing the fabric looser and looser with each measured step. His lips part, every so often, as if he’s about to speak, and my heart swings in step, eager, afraid; thinking I'm the thief stood before the cave, waiting for it to open up so I can steal all the treasure inside. Hear all this in the silence, as we walk, as we haven’t said a word. The dull ache of his pulse charging down his veins. I can hear mine too. They’re both as violent as each other. Except; mine’s crying out don’t ever leave me, don’t ever leave me, and his is whispering, low, of course I will, of course I will.

He stops, suddenly, on the corner.

“Where we going?”

My foot taps on the pavement. It needs something to do. If I stop, then all of it will stop. It’s these little things that jinx magic and tempt fate, you know, the little things.

I frown.

“I was following you.”

Street Boy frowns. We can just share facial expressions and not touch for all eternity. The things dreams are made of.

His hair’s out of his face and he’s holding his head up, not scared any more, and he’s furrowing against the glare of the sun through the clouds. Wonder if I could reach up and switch the sun off? He looks better in the dark. Less real. More like a flash you get when you’re a kid, squinting around the suddenly unfamiliar scene of your bedroom at night, catching glimpses of shape and form that you try to recognise, try to put together, but can’t. And they prey on your mind, daring you to reach out and touch them, to close your eyes and wish them away. Taunting you, because you’ll never turn on the light and just banish them completely. They might scare you. They might haunt you. But they tempt you too.

“I was following you.”

I scowl and shrug at him (fucking contagious) but he doesn’t notice. My shoulders have been firing off shrugs randomly for the last hundred metres or so anyway, and I can’t do too impressive a scowl even in my finest hour. Erratic eyebrows.

Hold on: this better not be a brilliant cinematic metaphor – we’re going nowhere.

Street Boy tiptoes along the edge of annoyance, lips pursing in a way I’m fairly sure should be unattractive, but still manages to hijack my undivided attention.

He looks so real.

It’s stupid, really, to be scared. Would’ve thought my imagination is good for something real. Preparing my body for all the things I dream of eventually happening. But that’s the seduction of dreaming: it’s not meant to be real. It’s meant to be idle. Safe indulgence in another world that will never be anything but fiction. In my head, I live on the edge. In reality? I hog the safe ground and cling to it fastidiously, till someone whips the floor out from under me. I am a limpet on life. It’s fine. I stay there, the middle of the road, getting run over by calamity and casualty – all that drama – as it flies by, completely oblivious as to what they trample underfoot.

I was never meant to actually get Street Boy. That’s what made it safe.

And even for that one night when he was with me, it was safe. Because it was always destined to end. There was a finite point, you see, stamped on the script from the start. I would fall for him, hard, from afar. Then maybe fall a little bit more, up close. There’d be hesitation and reluctance and obstacles, no doubt, but eventually maybe something would happen. Then it’d end, and that’d be done, and all that affection would just go. I’d accept that it was due to fade away, trapped in my mind as memories, this time, and just carry on as if nothing changed. Find something new to dream about, day in, day out.

Even if I didn’t stop thinking about him, even if he was always there – ever-present, tainting everything I do with the memory of his mouth on my thigh, or that whisper of night air as I drew him close and pushed his hair aside – that’d be alright. Because he was supposed to stop caring, or, ideally, never care at all. I was supposed to be another one-night stand. A bloke. I was meant to lust after him and he was meant to ignore me, go off and solicit the street corners of someone else’s mind. It’s perfect, you see, to belong to someone who’s gone. Because they never disappoint, never change, never shout at you or storm out. You never get chance to screw up. All you can do is miss them, and know that whilst they left you behind and found someone new, you still carry them around.

I’m used to that. It’s not the best way of life, I’m sure, but I’m used to it. Happy with it. Sort-of. It’s fine. Really. Yes. Fine.

But now he’s here, walking with me, looking so damn tangible – like a proper collection of limbs and skin in the daylight, like a real human, for the first time – and my skin won’t stop twitching of its own accord.

He turns his squint and furrowed brow away from me, eyes peering across the road.

A little half smile plays on his face. His eyes stop shielding themselves from the sun as he takes steps closer to me. By the time he raises his head up, his eyes have gone wide again, safe in the shadow of me. It’s scary, being that close to someone. His legs brush mine; the fingers of his right hand tap a rhythm as they toy with my tie, the space where it’s tight against my chest before it gets locked away inside my jacket. The soft touch of his fingers spanners my already erratic heart rate completely.

Must stop twitching like an idiot, must stop twitching like an idiot, must stop twitching like an idiot…

His eyes fix on mine: pupils stretching so wide, all I can see is my own reflection: stained black, but with the faintest fire of blue around the edges.

I don’t look so ridiculous through his eyes.

Maybe?

“Pete…”

One finger, rough tip and badly bitten fingernail, trails down my chest. I’m fully clothed. I can scarcely feel it. But it scorches my skin.

Muststoptwitchinglikeanidiot, muststoptwitchinglikeanidiot, muststoptwitchinglikeanidiot…

I swallow, trying desperately to keep it together.

“Carl…”

My voice comes out low, rasping, a more ragged whisper than I thought I’d ever have, cracking on the ‘l’. Street Boy’s shoulders rise inside his black leather jacket like a cat, arching its back to rub against the sound of my voice. His eyes lull almost shut. If I wasn't so scared, I’d touch him. Find the space where my thumb rests in the vague hollow of his cheek, the gap round the curve of his dirty neck where my fingers fit, where I can feel his heart rate charging up to the stars.

His eyes move back up to me:

“It’s the 143 bus you get home, isn’t it?”

I want to ask how he knows. Want to ask why he knows. Want to ask lots of questions just so I don’t have to think about what he’s saying.

My palms sweat. Profusely.

He looks at me.

I can describe his glares, his snarls, his sneers, his venomous threats and malicious taunts, all those dark emotions that dance across those eyes. I cannot, however, think of a single thing to say about his looks. They just are. Looks. All I can offer up is that they tear right through me. One hand fisted tight round my heart, whispering I shouldn’t be scared whilst simultaneously sharpening its claws; the other hand clamped hard round my cock, trapping me in that vice of agony that is want.

I might nod. I might not. I might just twitch and let him take that as an answer. All I know is that shaking fingers close in round my wrist – loose, hesitant, at first, then growing tighter – and I catch a glimpse of his face as he whips himself away, starts running across the road and pulling me along behind him. A glimpse of his face from under that devil black hair: eyes sparking with excitement, and a smile on his face a mile wide. It’s an impulse reaction – the snarls and sneers and endless parade of pouts, they’re all spitefully controlled, held up like masquerades. This smile sends happiness shooting right through me. Because, for a split second, that’s all there is on his face. Happiness.

***

Never before have I fully appreciated how brilliant buses are.

I mean, for a meagre one pound sixty, they take you pretty much anywhere. You get squashy seats covered in garish purple carpet material that scratches though your clothing. They’re warm, they’re dry. Full of harmless old ladies and disgruntled old gentlemen with walking sticks. The occasional bouncy Labrador with a slight salvia problem. You get a ticket you can make into a little paper silhouette person. Or a crab, it you’re feeling especially Tony Hart. You press the neon orange bell and they stop. They’re like magic.

They have those seats with extra legroom for the gangly ones among us. And also special seats for women with babies and the elderly who can’t quite navigate walking on a moving surface anymore.

They have those high-up seats over the back wheels were you’re seven inches taller than everyone else and anyone who gets on the bus looks at you like you’re regal, towering over the masses. Those seats where there isn’t quite enough space, for some reason, for you to sit next to someone without some contact being made. Legs touching. Hard thigh pressing against denim, curving the cloth, up against my leg in its brown battered suit. Angular elbows digging into my ribs from where he’s got his hands resolutely curved inside his pockets, as if he can’t trust his fingers to behave if he lets them loose on the world. Contact.

In the grimy window’s reflection, in the gap around the no smoking sticker, I can see myself. Brown eyes turned black, glowing wide, flashing around, taking everything in and tattooing it on my mind so I can’t ever forget. Smile of pure excitement, one I can’t chase off my face, showing my irregular teeth to the world. I’m lighting up the air, the place, everything that passes. I can tell.

And every person who gets on looks at us. Eyes get drawn to me, initially, in my seat by the window. It’s my eyes, wide and round and dark against my pale shell skin, that catch their attention first. Then the focus drops back. My smile, the gleam nestling deep in my face, resonating out of my skin and bones, making me shine out from behind the dark brown suit. They move even further back then, the camera lens in their mind zooming out for a bigger picture, trying to seek out the mystery behind my happiness. Not so they can steal it: just so they can know. And then they see him. Next to me. Swathed in dark and made for anger. Leg tapping with impatience, excitement; excitement that runs onto his face, eager to show everyone because it’s so rare on those features. His mouth’s held tight and he doesn’t say a word; but the corners of his lips, they’re straining, trying to contain the same smile and keep it for himself, in his chest, where he feels that swell around his heart. The rest of his lips remain tight pressed together. Like he’s got a secret he’s bursting to share. His eyes are wild, too. Not darting from everything to everything, like mine. Just focused, on the opposite corner of the step up to the back of the bus. As if seeing the places around him doesn’t matter, because the world’s there, wrapped up within himself.

It might be in the uncomfortable press of his elbow into my side, the taut creases created in the leather. Might be in the inch space at the other side of his seat he’s leaving clear, sitting closer to me than he’ll ever need to. Might be in the way neither of us moves a muscle, just in case it snaps. But they can see it between us, those people looking from the outside in. See the crackle of thirst as it buzzes in anticipation between us. See the gaps around us, between us, the way they dance and sway with every breath we take. We’re not two bonfires begging for an initial flame. We’re two fireworks, already lit and burning, chasing up into the dark, knowing the rest of the world can’t follow. Just waiting to let ourselves go.

***

As I undid the lock – fumbling with the keys that wouldn’t bend to my will, Sonic the Hedgehog keyring clattering loudly against the green wood of my door – my hands started shaking. And now I can’t make them stop. They just won’t. Stop.

I don’t bring anyone back here, to my flat. Ever.

It’s my sanctuary, you see. Everywhere I look there’s little pieces of me. From the flaking posters on my walls to the pictures in cheap plastic frames. The cover of Raw Power and Captain Scarlet – yes, he’s a marionette, yes I’m aware of that. And yes, when I was fourteen I used to watch the re-runs and lust after a puppet. The torn up magazines I leave lying around and the empty cigarette packets that think every corner’s their home. They’re my hazardous piles of takeaway carnage. It’s my rumpled shirts left lying around. It’s my cardboard cut-out of Andy Roddick I stole and have propped up in the corner of my living room.

Not that Street Boy can see all this, however. Since we’re both just standing in the middle of my narrow hall, both studying the eggshell blue flaking walls like they’re the most fascinating thing on earth. Even though it’s all so close, the rest of the flat, I can’t move, can’t let him in.

I don’t bring anyone back here.

When I go to work, I see Stan in his navy blue suit, palming me roughly behind a giant folder as my boss stands in front of us in the lift. I see Didz grabbing my arse by the fire escape door, as he disconnects the alarm and nips out for a cigarette. I see my own flushed reflection in the toilet mirrors, hair sticking in loops to the sweat on my forehead, as I zip up my fly and pull myself back together with each click of metal tooth as it slides into place.

When I go to Jules’ flat, Stan’s waiting in the doorway for me, no matter who answers my knock. I’m eternally on top of Stan on the sofa, hipbones clashing and both of us straining to remember to call out the right name when we come. Stan’s there, back against the kitchen cabinet, as I sink to my knees and he drops his towel, and I can taste his lime shower gel on his skin. I’m there, always, Lady Macbeth with jam on my hands. Shakespeare’s loss, if you ask me.

Didz’s flat is littered with ghosts. Places my hands have been braced against the wall. All the points where my cries of please have echoed coldly off the walls. The sofa where Street Boy lay with me, that night. Sends shivers up my spine.

No one’s ever here.

But now, he is. Street Boy, standing there, cigarette ash floating slowly to the floor as he takes a drag and looks around, the other hand still in his pocket. And my mind’s taking snapshots already, pinning him there, in the air. And because it’s him, it’s every gesture. It’s the way his hand leaves his pocket and snarls round a belt loop, fingers wrapping round it and turning white as they push the denim to its limit in his grasp. It’s the way he followed me in, leaving us both stood in the hallway. My mind races with all the things he hasn’t touched.

It scares me. Because when I close my eyes, he won’t go. Even after he’s got what he came here for, and he’s left me behind, he won’t go.

That’s why we’re both standing in my hall. Because who honestly spends any great amount of time in their hallway? I only ever do when I’m hiding from my window cleaner. Aside from that – never. Which is fine. Because then, maybe, I’ll only catch fleeting glimpses of him as I pass through, rather than have him permanently hanging in the air, a statuette memorial of all the things I’ll never have.

I stand here, bolt upright, jaw clenched, eyes fixed in the vague region of his knees, holding my breath. Reminding myself that there’s nothing arousing about knees.

Street Boy’s watching me. Fixes me straight with his gaze. Eyes shedding through my skins and masks, fizzing and exploding in scars of sparks in the dark of my eyes. Lust licks flames of fear, like napalm through my nerves.

His cigarette burns down, trailing smoke into the air.

He takes a final drag, drops it to the floor, stubs it out underfoot as it burns a small ‘O’ in my carpet.

“Oh, shit, sorry…”

His hair closes the curtains round his face as he looks down, but I can see red embarrassment colouring his cheeks.

I smile. Once he’s had me, he’s as good as gone. A cigarette burn seems apt to remember him by. I shrug, trying to chase off that line of thought. I don’t want everything to become just another thing to remember him by. Feels like I spend so much time cataloguing, committing my decidedly lacklustre life to memories, that I forget I’m supposed to be living it. Spanner.

“S’okay.”

He shrugs, gratefully. Even in this small space, my voice gets lost. Sounds so damn pitiful. Wish I was a bit more impressive. Not just in physique. Though that could stand to be improved. Wish I’d, y’know, achieved something. Not curing cancer or solving the problem of famine – I’d settle for rescuing a cat out a tree or being really good at making apple crumble. But I have enough trouble not getting injured on dry land, let alone scaling the heights of the local larch to try and rescue dozy cats. And microwave lasagne is cordon bleu as far as chez Doherty is concerned. Cold microwave lasagne. My microwave doesn’t like me too much. It has authority issues. Out of all the people on Earth, it had to be me that got the Johnny Thunders microwave, didn’t it – I mean, really?

Street Boy smiles down at his tab end. It’s unnerving, seeing him smile so much. Didn’t know he had it in him.

It’s the wrong time to ask if he’s high, isn’t it?

He shuffles his foot slightly as he talks.

“M’just used to concrete, that’s all…”

“What, my humble abode a bit more high class than your usual habitat?”

I think – I think – I managed to get a whole statement out there without making a complete twat out of myself. I cross my fingers. There can be miracles, when you believe. Mariah Carey and Whitney said that, and I believe them. Wholeheartedly.

“S’hardly the fucking Ritz, but s’alright.”

He shrugs, smiles, not quite relaxing but some of the weight being lifted off his shoulders.

“Least your flats’ got blinds at the windows instead of plywood boards. Floor you can walk on without having to dodge the burnt out boards.”

I frown:

“What, d’you live in a squat or something?”

He snorts.

“Fuck, I wish.”

“Why, where do you live then?”

If he tells me, I must not use my £4.99 two-man tent and camp up outside and steal his milk when it gets delivered. I did that one already. Restraining orders aren’t big and they certainly aren’t clever.

His eyes flick up, flick down. Battens down the hatches and slinks into his jacket.

“You should fucking know, fucking watching me all the time.”

“I’m not stalking you –”

A bit of careful observation does not constitute stalking, thank you very much.

“– I can only see you when you’re loitering by the fire escape, round the back of that burnt out building.”

His whole face burns a guilty, angry red. My mouth falls open.

“You don’t live there? Surely?”

He can’t do. That place isn’t fit for snails, let alone human life, let alone him.

Eyes blaze, hands get stuffed into pockets, pout gets put firmly back on. Bugger.

“’S a fucking roof over my head, alright?”

I don’t want to think of him there, shivering in some blankets on a stolen mattress, sheltering away from the cold only to find there’s no escape.

“But it must be fucking freezing.”

My flat’s sub-zero for most of winter, and I have (albeit temperamental) heating. And socks. Street Boy doesn’t wear socks. I dream about his ankles. They enrapture me. God, I’m rubbish.

“There must be somewhere else you can go –”

My concern gets swallowed by his contempt, his snarl:

“What? Just shack up with one of the blokes? ‘Hope the missus doesn’t mind, I’ll kip on the sofa and you can just have me whenever you feel like?’”

“No, course not…”

Why does everything happen in these bloody circles? I say something, he says something, all hell breaks loose and neither of us is happier by the end of it. It’s fucking Punch and Judy, stuck on repeat, and God’s a cruel puppeteer.

“But if you make thirty quid an hour, you must be able to afford somewhere better than that…”

Something in my words turns contempt and a sneer into a rage and a snarl. Could strike a match on the curl of that lip.

“Thirty?”

He walks closer to me, defiant, chin raised, eyes cruel.

“Think I’m some high class escort boy who makes thirty fucking quid an hour?”

He stares right up into my eyes, hot breath on my lips, spitting words out in a snarled whisper:

“A tenner and I’m anybody’s, Pete.”

The words cut through me. I don’t know why. He tried to charge me thirty and I don’t know why. He’s here, snarling right up into my face as I slink away from him and I don’t know why.

More words get spat into my face, a devilish, questioning tone taunting me, curling those lips so fucking artfully it makes my blood pound.

“What ‘bout you? How much d’you make an hour? Fiver, five-fifty?”

Can guess where he’s going. And I don’t like it one bit.

“And, what, that bloke, Chintz or whatever you call him –”

“Didz.”

“Didz – he pay you extra?”

He raises a questioning eyebrow. Asking me to correct him, tell him it’s something more, something better. Tell him I’m nothing like him, that I only fuck for love, not money. Fuck, I don’t even do it for money. I’m not sure I even do it for fun. Just… what else can I do? Everyone needs that human touch, everyone. Skin gets so cold and useless without it.

“Bet there’s others. That blonde bird Didz is with? She have you on the side n’all? That curly-haired, tailored-suited wanker with his fucking Porsche, that brown-haired bloke you’re always with? Any more, Pete?”

I swallow. Pride and nerves. Hideous taste I can barely stomach. Would’ve thought I’d have learnt by now.

He smirks. It’s grotesque and playing havoc with my brain.

“You’ll just bend over for anyone, Pete, for nothing.”

One of his perpetually cold, strong hands has fisted round my heart. It hurts. My skin crawls, like it normally does when I’m alone, because I don’t let people under it. My mouth protests, because that’s what it does, all it can do.

“What… I…”

He cuts me off, mocking curiosity now snaring his features.

“Or d’you pay them? For putting up with you?”

I clench my jaw like I’m taking a punch. Maybe I am.

“Fuck off.”

“So you don’t have to be alone?”

He’s hitting so many nerves I think I’m on fire. This is cruel. He must know, what its like, to live like this, to feel like this. He must do. I’ve seen it, heard it slip out his merciless lips. I don’t know why he’s doing this, but as much as I want to hide in my own bathroom and lock the door so he can’t ever find me, I won’t. I talk. Try and chip my words out.

“Fuck off.”

He smiles, wickedly. Maliciously. Like being the ruin of me is the sweetest victory he’ll ever find. He doesn’t need to say anything else. I’m already cheap. What more is there to say?

Clearly, something, as my flapping mouth opens and starts forming noise;

“Well, what are you here for? Money? Thirty quid? That it?”

I stuff my hand into my pocket, searching. My fingers stumble round the tenners, fluttering like a caged bird in my hand. I hold them out to them, fingers still shaking.

“Here. Take it. Fuck off.”

I mean it. Definitely. Yes.

No.

Yes? God, I’ll let him ruin me. Just, please.

His eyes fix on the money. I expect greed to be there, flashing purple daggers through the blue. Anger, stabbing me with that icy flash. Anticipate him snatching it from my hand, stuffing it in his pocket, turning on his heel and slamming the door as he leaves. His every movement forever echoing off the corners of my mind.

I don’t expect the venomous growl in his voice, low. Like a tongue luring up the curves of my back before teeth sink in between my shoulder blades. The pleasurable taunt of calm before the merciless bite of the storm.

“Don’t want your money, Pete.”

Most people who know me wouldn’t really describe me as having nerves of steel. If I hear a buzzing sound next to my ear – that malicious bee/wasp/stinging creature noise – I adopt the standard Doherty Defence Method: freeze. Locate source of buzzing (and all evil). Scream loudly. Run, flinging limbs out so as to prevent source of buzzing from getting tangled into my hair or crawling into my ear and stinging my brain.

Whilst this has a 99.9 percent effect rate, it does render me a bit of an idiot.

Similarly, when faced with the shards of desire, vulgar and suffocating in my stomach, being stoked with fury by the look Street Boy is giving me, I know there is only one response. I will ramble like an idiot. An idiot.

“What then? Coke? I don’t have any –”

He blinks, eyelids clicking like a camera shutter, trapping me under his gaze and under his spell. His eyes change in that instant. Sadness gone. Anger gone. Something more violent, more destructive steals their place. It makes my breath snatch out at the air. I can see it, twisting and scratching beneath his skin, barbed into points in his eyes as he looks at me. Like my clothes cover too much. Like my skin covers too much. Like he won’t be happy until I’m just a tangled mass of wires pulsing for him on the floor, and the white light or dark swirl of my soul is laid bare.

I’m scared.

I don’t understand how someone can look at me like that. I’m not good enough. My skin fits too tight, then too loose when I try and hide behind it. It doesn’t make sense, when I try and match up the void between what he thinks he’s seeing and what’s actually there. Work out how, between points A and B, he believes there’s something in me worthy of that look that makes my heart burst with pride, then recoil with fear, where all I can see is me.

He takes a step forward. Comes closer. There’s no contact. We don’t touch. I’m stood, back almost brushing the wall, nerves quaking and cracking my skin. Backed into a corner. Him in front of me. The whisper of his ragged breath as it scalds the air. The dirt I know I’ll find tarnishing his skin, round the back of his neck where it thinks no one can see. Street Boy, our chests and hearts threatening to collide, his skin snarling on its leash. Begging to be let out, screaming for destruction. Because he can see it now, as he leans up into my face. Blue eyes so fucking defiant I want to cower away, evaporate, just end it so it doesn’t scare me anymore. He can see the potential he’s got, trapped in his every movement, to snatch away at me until I forget that I was ever anything more than his. The potential he’s got to unbind that beautiful lust for destruction that plays kiss-catch with his will to survive, turn that frustration at not being able to tame the world and that fucking refusal to let anything tame him, on me. Ruin me. Because it’s the simplest thing to do, now.

And he knows it.

“No.”

He purrs the word. Thrills my skin. Claims me that little bit more as he creeps ever closer, without even moving. Just conquering me with the hot flashes of his breathing as it scathes my lips. The deafening beat of my heart as it sends tremors through the earth, the raw smell of his skin as the anger hisses and seethes beneath it.

From the outside in, this picture would be wrong. His slight frame, pinning me in place – seems surreal. Maybe strangers’ eyes would see coyness in the fury, a petty defiance. They’d draw in the mouth, the wide eyes. See submission written all over him.

How fucking wrong they’d be.

“I don’t have anything else to give you.”

My voice is small. Wish I was too. Just shrink down inside my skin and use my body to distract him from all that’s inside. Not many people mess with my heart. Not many make an impact. I don’t think it’s ever been broken. Don’t think it’s ever been touched. There are a lot of things strewn around the human form to distract you from the heart, a lot of tricks hidden behind the skin. Orgasms, for example. It’s easy to miss the heart when there are so many simpler things in the way. It’s even easier to miss it when you’re not aiming for it in the first place.

Don’t like the way he’s cutting me to the core. Don’t like it at all.

He raises his head, just enough, so our lips almost touch.

It’s cruel, that gasp of space between us. Relishing his power. He knows what I want, knows I won’t take it. Won’t force it from him like everyone else, won’t treat him like everyone else. I won’t imagine him as someone different, won’t create some fiction in my mind to appease my conscience. Won’t make excuses to myself about my ‘real’ life, with a wife and three kids. I won’t dress him up in a suit in my mind and make him someone better, tailor the history to shrug off my guilt at buying him and treating him like some fucking commodity. Won’t imagine red velvet curtains up at the windows instead of graphitised boards to make the whole encounter a lot less sordid in my mind. Won’t whisper in his ear that he’s mine, that he’s a slut. Won’t raise a hand to him because he’s paid to take whatever I choose to fucking give him. Won’t fuck him and toss him aside. Won’t tell him or even dare to think, he’s only good for one thing.

He’s good for so much more. He might not know it himself yet, but he knows I do. So much fucking more.

There’s a charge in his eyes. Where everything splits. The spark of malice suspended in his pupils bursts, dilates the darkness wide in pure adrenaline as the ice restraint in the venom of the blue gets mastered by his lust. It steals my breath away.

My back slams against the wall, recoils in pain. The three ten pound notes flutter to the floor. Street Boy smirks at me and curls his body closer, harder, into mine, my shoulder blades and ribs bruising against the wall in a vicious torrent of ecstasy. Fierce hands pin my wrists either side of my head, and Street Boy’s eyes burn with the thrill of control. The dull weight of his knife in his pocket presses through my skin, another threat that I want to submit myself to, not run away from. A denim-clad leg slams in between mine. Hard. White bleaches behind my eyes but I don’t even get the chance of gasping for relief, mercy, from so much determined and malicious pleasure as my hips thrust forward, arching my back to grind against his thigh. My head falls back, a dull thud not even daring to challenge the desperate lust in my head, and my lips part, a stuttered moan panting on my tongue.

Street Boy’s hands claw themselves back from my wrists. I shut my eyes, bite my lip. Hard. There’s the hiss of a zip, undone, the shrug of leather snaking across shoulders and collapsing onto the floor. I can’t open my eyes. Can’t. Imagining the curves of his arm, the curves of his back, trapped in some ripped t-shirt… God, too much.

“Fuck…”

The thigh presses harder.

Fingers flicker around my chest. There’s the slide of cheap scratchy tie against thin cotton – the white shirt, same shade as my skin – and a rough tip of a finger tracing a line up my chest. So fucking confusing in contrast to the blatant violent pleasure of friction between aching cock and teasing thigh. Fingers steal round the edges of my tie. Can hear the faint noise, even over my own harsh breathing.

The thigh presses harder.

“Please…”

Fingers. Pull.

Tie tightens round my neck, snapping my neck forward and dragging me down to his level. The cry of shock gets stolen by his lips. My knees go weak. All the softness of that mouth, all that soft seduction of that lower lip, all of it’s gone. I can feel the flush of blood, taste the urgency: there’s no tease, nothing soft or subtle or gentle. Just lips plundering mine – both our mouths already split apart, the need for satisfaction making us cave in to this fury. Tongues fighting pleasure, violent clashes for control, groans slipping out our mouths met with malicious rapture and awe – the savage sadistic joy of making someone else weaker than you, just for an instant – before its lost again, and the dizzying happiness at being captured by the venom in his lips, his tongue, sends stars behind my eyes.

There’s another tug at my tie. Deft fingers betray their experience as it almost instantly hits the floor. My jacket follows.

Fingers move up to my shirt, stumbling with the buttons. My skin feels like its melting under his touch, even censored by the fabric. My lips feel like they’re unravelling, spinning out into nothing but the dark recesses of his soul where he can just keep me forever. My cock feels like…

“Gneeehuuughgh…”

I can taste his smirk.

The final button gives in to his command. My stomach flips and twists in anticipation. My shirt isn’t removed. It’s ripped off me, like I had no right to even consider owning one. I don’t hear it hit the floor. The only noise in the world is my gasp as the jagged edge of a blunt fingernail rakes over my chest, painting a red line of territory in its wake. My blood flares up a notch. Black waltzes over my vision, elegant and languid, decadent and slow, not even trying to avoid the onslaught of dark colours sparking behind my eyelids.

Then. It stops. Suddenly.

Thigh gone. Fingers gone. Lips gone.

Did I imagine it all along?

If I’m imagining it then it’s not fair that it stops. Every man has the right to control his own fantasies. Don’t think I would’ve made it all the way through Titanic if I didn’t have the right to control my own fantasies.

I blink open my eyes.

Breathing becomes a distant memory.

Street Boy, black t-shirt, ripped off sleeves and torn collar. Belt done up too loose. Hard inside his jeans. Mouth half-smiling, half-sneering, blaring red. Daring. Skin glowing in the dim light of the hallway. Chest shuddering with breaths that rasp the very fibres of my soul. Black hair shining, curling into his eyes. Eyes. Kill me.

“Bedroom.”

It’s not a question. It’s not a suggestion. It’s a command.

I obey. Nod my head in the direction of the door behind me, to my left. A flicker of lust curls in the darker slashes in his eyes as the bones in my neck flaunt themselves against the surface of my skin. Lips part further, pout slightly, like they’re trying in vain to remember to not be led into temptation. It feels like they’re kissing and tormenting my neck already.

His hands close round his shirt, toying with a loose end of thread for a second. Every time his fingers flex, the white bone presses against his dirty gold skin and forms some shade halfway between purity and dirt, and the fabric strains in his grasp, fighting to break free but desperate to remain caught. Just the thought of those fingers against my skin. What they can do. How every sordid fantasy in my head shouldn’t be swept up in long fingers with bitten down nails.

He tugs his shirt off, over his head.

He takes just a second too long to be professional. Lets his hair fall back down over his bare skin with a wistful half-smile, before snapping back into his rage of arousal. Even though he’s here, he’s more elusive than ever. The V of his collarbones, prominent, like a two-fingered salute – the curl of his back as he turns and walks away from me, the five steps to my bedroom door. Two dints at the base of his back that I want to mark with my tongue tonight, leave him moaning with pleasure, and rediscover under the covers with nervous fingers in the morning. The random slashes of bone and muscle. I want them all. The fact that, this time, he doesn’t turn back to check I’m following, not like before, on the street, tells me he knows I do. More elusive than ever.  
***

Is it wrong to want him to touch my skin?

I mean, obviously it’s not wrong for me to want that. Because ever since I followed him, kicking off my shoes, into my bedroom, he’s been doing nothing but touching my skin.

No time to panic about the fact my blue and beloved Rabbit is half on-display. Or to worry that having a dartboard with a picture of Mick Hucknall on it isn’t exactly tantamount to a boudoir atmosphere. Mind you, the curtains I’ve got (ones I took from home with big rust-coloured tractors on) definitely don’t scream seduction. Or to fret about the overflowing ash trays or collection of empties or copies of Heat and OK! and Vogue that nestle amongst more respectable literature. Like Dikou The Mysterious Moon Sheep.

It’s really not surprising I don’t bring anyone back here. I’d still be a virgin if I did.

But there was no time for dreaded embarrassment to set in. Because first it was the eyes. Devouring me, the way I would do with my own reflection, if I were him. Scavenging over every inch of skin, stripping back layers of fabric in his mind, writing the dirty thoughts all over his face. Letting the tension stretch me further on its rack and smirk, devilish, as the bulge in my trousers definitely didn’t get any smaller.

Then it’s the brush of anticipation, coarser than his fingertips and the obscenities they make fly out my mouth, as he creeps closer to me, discarding his too-big shoes and stalking barefoot through the carpet. Then its one finger, tracing the red line he left minutes ago on my chest. Then it’s three, pressing round my collarbone and making me writhe under his touch. Then it’s all five, skimming down my chest – a faint touch over my nipple and I’m gasping for more. Then it’s undoing my trousers, one handed, a spurt of breath the only crack in the commanding façade as they fall to the floor; Street Boy surprised and pleased I’m not wearing anything underneath. He plasters over it, though, so fast it makes my head spin and heart charge. The other hand grabs my back, pulling me into him, coarse denim on my thighs and glorious friction as he rolls his hips and its closer. He touches my skin, knows what I’ll do – hands snared into the soft skin on his back, grasping for a hold as I gasp for blessed air and try and stop myself from unravelling completely under his dominant hipbones and bruising touch.

It’s just… is it wrong for me to want him to touch my skin for no reason? Not to tease me or wrap a hand round my impatient cock, just so afterwards it feels more like an equal exchange, instead of daylight robbery. Not to fuel the riot in my skin and make me more in awe and fear of him than I am already. Not to make me gift over the feeling of power that’s making him even harder, as he feels me struggle under his touch and try to remember that this isn’t what I wanted – to be controlled by someone, yet again. Not any of that. Just to touch, because he likes my skin? Because he likes me?

Being shoved backwards by two cold hands, my knees bending and leaving me folding into the familiar ground of my bedspread, serves as a fairly effective yes.

Don’t want to like this. I’d love to be a romantic and refuse him, say this isn’t what I want. That I want more. Oh, fuck, I’d love to do that. Partly just to watch his face. Or I’d love to smirk and drag him down too, make him slave to hard touches and the demands of my hands, use him like he’s used to. I can’t, though. My mind’s fuddled and my heart’s gone into hiding, desperate to not be seen. All I’ve got is my cock and all it wants is him. No matter what.

Usually, that’s how trouble begins.

For fuck’s sake, get a grip. I know why I’m here. I know what I want. Stop thinking. Shut up for once in your life. It’ll all be over in (six) ten minutes. Ten minutes. I spend longer at the dentist.

Street Boy must know how incapable I am of silencing my brain. Must do. Because the cold air radiating into my skin gets chased away in the latest whirl of thrilling fear as he climbs on top of me. Pins me on the bedcovers with two thighs, still caged in jeans, either side of my hips.

Sweet. Mother. Of. Jesus.

He leans forward. Bites my lower lip. Denim scrapes against my wanting skin.

“Errghnnnneuuugh…”

He rolls his hips. Into me.

Doesn’t he know I’m trying to be quiet? Attempting to resist, refrain and restrain?

His hair hangs in my face.

Should kiss him. Slow, almost post-coital, chase away some of the tension. Go back to the other kisses before, that weren't hard and about control – just the slow-burn of desire as it crept up on the two of us. That string of maybes that frustrated me endlessly at the time, but I’d give anything to return to now. Should kiss him. Distract him from flaunting the power he has over me, straddling me and intoxicating me. Stop me from coming all over his already grubby jeans.

He stops. Climbs off me, the bedsprings groaning in protest.

Shit.

Maybe he can read my thoughts?

Shit.

No.

I open my eyes, again – can’t remember even shutting them, because of him always being here, inside my head and inside my home.

He’s looking down at me like he knows what I’m thinking.

My cheeks flush.

He can’t read my thoughts. Otherwise he’d know that the first time I tried smoking, I tried to light the wrong end, singed my fringe and burnt half my eyebrows off. And had to draw them in with eyeliner before school the next day. Only it rained. The panda/badger jokes wrote themselves, really. I looked like an alien. If he could read that, then he’d be laughing his head off and running like the clappers away from me.

If he can’t read my thoughts, then why did he get off me?

The metallic clink of a belt buckle being undone provides an answer. He grabs something out his pockets.

My mouth drops open.

Holy fuck.

The button on his fly gets popped.

Holy fuck, holy fuck, holy fuck…

The slide of fabric down over his legs is almost too much to bear.

My fingers twist into the sheets.

Tearing my eyes away from the skin just revealed is an immense task. Immense. Moses parting the Red Sea is paltry in comparison. But I do. Look at his face instead, my brown eyes wide, mouth open, muttering under my breath;

“God, Carl…”

For an instant, there’s surprise in his eyes. Awe as well, as they go wide in his head, staring at me in part-disbelief, like he’s waiting for me to say the punch line. I wonder who did it to him? Who made him think that his body is just flesh and bone, not something to be revered, astounded by? Or whether anyone did: if he just did it to himself? Wonder if it was one of the blokes, taking him off that pedestal he deserves to be on and debasing it with their hideous, unappreciative hands. Perhaps he just thought of himself as nothing all along. You can convince yourself of anything, really. Because you know what you are, and you know what you’re not and what you’ll never be. But how could he think that? That he’s nothing, nothing special? How could he be so fucking wrong? I bet for every bloke that might have told him he’s worthless, there have been two that told him he’s beautiful. But I bet he doesn’t believe them. Bet he thinks they’re out to get into his pants, and would say that.

In the instant, I think about telling him. Saying it aloud, instead of letting him read it in my face. Think about standing up, wrapping my arms around him and kissing the top of his head, smudging my lips against his ear and whispering it to him until he believes it too.

But then, he remembers himself. Snatches back the awe and surprise and pours lust into his eyes instead. A fierce stare that sends jolts shooting straight to my cock. He smirks.

“Turn over.”

I hate it. But I do as he says. The contact between bed and cock is just about the greatest thing on earth.

“Gnnnnuugh…”

I resuscitate my restraint using my Old Faithful Erection Killer: Paul McCartney singing Mull of Kintyre whilst eating a hot dog covered in mustard. Does it every time. I do not want to come just yet. No. Way.

God bless Macca.

Footsteps and a bitten groan behind me.

The anticipation is too much, choking me. I hate this. Hate being pressed into some inanimate object instead of a human body. Hate the way it renders you faceless, means you’re only present in the pleasure that you give. I wanted to see the look in his eyes. Wanted him to see the look in mine. But this doesn’t feel so much like sex. More like a punishment. For the fact that, for once, I know who he is and still want him. But only if he’ll have me. Punishment for the fact that I haven’t done anything wrong.

Determined hands spread my legs slightly. I pretend not to notice the way they’re shaking, the hesitation, the nervous breathing and mumbled “fuck” as the mattress dips and he climbs over me, sitting up on his knees so I won’t notice the way he’s trembling, either.

“Oh… fuck…”

And it’s bizarre, the fingers inside me, because they know what they’re doing, too fucking right they do, my back arching and just needing more now, harder and fiercer until the volts of rapture burning up my nerves split my worthless body into a thousand pieces and I don’t have to exist anymore.

“God…”

They know what they’re doing, but there’s still something so wrong about the whole scene –

“Fuck!”

Macca eating a hotdog, mustard, Mull of Kintyre…

– in the lack of contact. Like he’s daring me to enjoy it but making it impossible for me not to.

I don’t understand him. Don’t understand him at all.

“Oh, God…”

The fingers leave. He leans forward, and there’s no escaping skin on skin this time. Arms braced either side of me, his chest on my back and the force of his heart thudding away. It’d knock me off my feet, if I wasn't already here, face down, so only the bedcovers hear the charging rush of confusion in my cry as Carl thrusts into me.

And for a moment I see nothing but stars, feel nothing but pain. Because this isn’t how I wanted it, and I don’t think it’s how Street Boy (if he even bothered to think about it) would’ve wanted it either. As if he’s not letting himself get what he wants, because he doesn’t want to want it. Doesn’t want to want me.

His hot breath spills over my ear as he groans into it, not moving yet. I would say that he’s drawing it out because normally sex is no luxury for him. It’s get up, get in, get off, with the blokes. But even though he’s inside me, even though I won’t give in to that sensation that it could be anyone beneath him – that he clearly wants, positioning me like this – and despite the fact that this is what I want more than anything, it’s not enough. Because it’s not Carl inside me: it’s Street Boy. He might as well be wearing a fucking suit of armour.

My breath gets stolen. He starts to move. Slamming into me hard. Hips snap as if he wants to break me. There’s no control: he’s already got my senses. My skin screaming out for more contact, the slide of sweat and lithe muscle together. His breathing and the throbs of pain that shouldn’t be there, they’re all I can hear. I can still taste him on my tongue. Smell him, even as my face gets pushed harder into my own bedspread. What more does he want?

I give up on Macca and the Old Faithful Erection Killer. He fought the good fight, but really, had no chance in hell. Relax my back, let my shoulder blades fall from where they’ve been tight, seeking out some of Street Boy’s elusive skin. Just surrender.

He thrusts in deeper. My world goes black.

It’s blissful, the simplicity. Ecstasy crashing through the dying pain and my hips being curled into the friction of the mattress with his movements. And there’s no cries of harder, like normal, from my mouth – no more or please. I can’t take any more, even if he’s got it to give. I want to see his skin slick gold and the sweat creeping down his spine. That’s all.

He leans further forward, moves in further, my whole body crying out. A voice in my ear, a low growl, taut with need and desire;

“Fuck…”

He draws a shaky breath, pounding into me, as if he’s afraid it’s going to be his last:

“…Pete…”

There’s rapture in his voice that makes my heart skip. I groan something, a curse or praise that means nothing, and imagine his face. The expression on it isn’t one of lustful abandon. It’s deadly fucking serious. As if he wants to die from this and wants to take the rest of the world with him. Die from it by thrusting into me so fucking hard and wracking my whole body with such fucking ridiculous tremors of pleasure, I can’t remember what it was like to be anything but pinned for his pleasure and picturing him with that intense expression on his face as he goes harder and fucking harder, praying and dreading release.

His passion, scared restraint, anger, dance down my limbs and set me alight.

Then, there’s lips, blurring against my ear, soft, drifting down to my jaw, kissing that spot behind my ear where my thumb fits when I curl my hand round Street Boy’s face, slowly. A counterpoint to the shivers streaking down my frantically arching spine, forcing myself back onto him, bringing myself so close.

“JESUS!”

My shout isn’t quietened by the bedspread, as I tear my mouth away and gasp for breath. The entire world goes a strange yellow/gold behind my eyes as I come, and I know it’s only the heat of Carl’s furious body driving onwards to bring him to the end as well, but for a second my deluded mind feels like its burning up, hanging round the street corners of the sun.

“Pete…”

Sweat hangs, perfectly tawdry, from the curve of his arm, threatening to fall. I move my panting mouth, without thinking, to steal it with my tongue. Mix the taste of that skin with the scent and let it bring me to my knees, time and time again. My mouth never gets there. Because sharp teeth clamp down on the back of my neck – hard – and I can feel Carl’s muscles all tense as he comes, shaking and shuddering and holding me beneath him, so I can’t escape, so I feel it too. The manic thud of his devastating heart.

He collapses half on top of me, half on the bed, but quickly draws his limbs away from me, and just lies there, not looking at me, and waits for his breathing to calm. I wait for the happiness of satisfaction to come to me. I wait for my face to crack into a smile. I wait for my heart to stop strangling me. Most of all, I wait for a hand in my hair, or lips, gentle, against mine.

My arse hurts, my back hurts, my wrists ache, my nose hurts from where he punched me, and I’ve made an almighty mess of my bedcovers.

And I know all that I’m waiting for isn’t ever going to come.


	9. Chapter 9

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

Wolfman was leaning back in his chair at the front of the deserted classroom, resting on the two back legs with his feet up on a pile of papers on the desk. He was supposed to be marking them. Sweep them all into some stereotypically decrepit leather bag contraption, lock the freezing Portakabin up for the night and climb into his red Mondeo and drive off into the wilderness. Ready and eager to return to teaching ignorant seventeen year olds who were all slightly unnerved by his mere presence.

I was sat in my seat, halfway back. I wasn't meant to be there. I wasn’t meant to be there three afternoons a week. I wasn’t meant to be there instead of doing coursework and learning stuff. I wasn’t meant to be scraping average grades. But then again, Wolfman kept insisting that his cock was supposed to be in my pouty little mouth, so it all balanced out somewhere down the line.

Looked up from the desk I was doodling on. Turned my wide eyes like spotlights onto him. I wasn’t sure I liked him – I didn’t hate him, and he didn’t repulse me, the way he probably should have. I harboured no delusions of love. Wolfman just had this thirst for the sordid and loved to think that I was being twisted round his little finger. He thought himself a practitioner of the fine art of manipulation. Part of me desperately wanted to point out I was a seventeen year old boy. All I thought about was sex. I needed no manipulating. Just some commanding hands to raise my legs, or push my shoulders down till my knees hit the floor.

I don’t know why Wolfman wanted to talk. I mean, he talked all the time, rabbitted on, a wild flash in his eyes at the sound of his own voice. He thought himself intoxicating. I thought him a bit of a wanker, but he could undo my fly with his teeth, and I don’t know how you could say no to that kind of logic.

I shrugged.

“Dunno.”

Yes, I was a terribly fascinating child. With lots to say and big ideas. I just didn’t want to talk about it, that’s all.

The worst thing I’d ever done? I flicked through my mind. I tried to kiss my sister’s boyfriend once. I climbed into an empty wheely bin for a joke as well. Smelt something awful. Got stuck up a tree, trying to prove that I could climb. I pretended I got electric shock and just let myself plummet to the ground. Rode my bike into a fence. Fainted when I had my ear pierced, then took it out when people called me George Michael and made me sing Careless Whisper over and over again.

Wolfman smirked at me.

“What about wrapping your lips round your teacher in his shower?”

I nodded. He made a fair point. Blow jobs were not fun. Biology taught me that my throat was for food (swallowing the products of mechanical digestion) and breathing (respiration). Occasionally, speaking. Cocks were mentioned at no point.

“What about getting on your knees in a cinema, sucking him off?”

He tugged my hair hard, then. Came calling me a slut, but I could hardly hear it for Barefoot In The Park and my own choking. Robert Redford still gives me shudders.

“What about letting a man fuck you with his fingers in the backseat of his car?”

Wolfman was really getting off on it, teasing himself by not letting him touch the bulge at the front of his grey corduroy trousers. Just carried on cleaning out his fingernails with a Bic biro.

I blinked. Spoke:

“What ‘bout you? What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

Wolfman’s eyes stripped me of my clothing and grabbed me round the neck.

“You.”

As I sit up in my bed, alone, lighting a cigarette with a dodgy lighter and shaking hands, I wonder if Street Boy would say the same.

He just… left.

Call me Bridget Jones if you like, but he just left.

Not that I was expecting post-coital spooning or anything, not after that, but something. Some exchange of pleasantries. Even unpleasantries. Even obscenities or shrugging and scowling would’ve done. But he just got up without a word, shut my bedroom door behind him and left me lying in my own wet spot.

What can you say after that? What the fuck do I want him to say?

Fuck off, got what you wanted, didn’t you? You’ve had me on my knees. I've been inside you. What the fuck else is there for me to stick around for? You didn’t actually think I was interested, did you? I feign interest for a living. Tenner and I’m anybody’s, yeah? What the fuck makes you think you’re anything more? You’re not worth anything more.

Why, whenever I get what I want, do I never get what I want?

Maybe I just want too much?

Cigarette ash drops onto my bedspread.

‘Course I want too much. I mean, fucks’ sake, I pick a rent boy, of all people, to expect to stick around after? How unbelievably stupid am I? Jesus. I need to put on my kicky red ankle boots and get my bloody head examined. I can’t expect that much from people. Who am I to demand things like that? Demand more? I get what I fucking deserve and I need to stop being so fucking naïve about it.

This is it. Everything. It. That’s all you deserve and that’s all you’ll ever get.

Should stick to committing everything to memory. Wouldn’t feel so cold now, sitting in some hideous grey boxers and a black polo neck I bought in my Beatnik phase, because I’d rewind it all in my head and do all those things I never got a chance to. Bite the curve of his arm. Laugh about the crap fish tattoo he let me get. Use his hair to make a moustache over my top lip and see if I suited it. See his eyes flutter shut as he comes, let his sweat drip onto my lips. Taste him on my tongue. Instead, all I can feel is alone, and sore, and used, really, for the first time in my life. Completely used.

And my hands still won’t stop shaking.

***

 

Throughout history, the most dangerous of people aren’t the renegades. The madmen, the mavericks. Oh no. The dangerous ones are the people with plans. I’ve seen (adverts for) spaghetti westerns. Clint Eastwood looked like a man with a plan. Terminator? Had a plan. Jesus? Had a plan. Bob Dylan? Had no plan, but in the early years, good hair, which is also crucial. History doesn’t let you forget crap hairdos. Just look at JFK. Vietnam – political failure. Do people still like him? – Apparently. Why? That brilliant block of hair.

My plan? Well, it’s not up there with the Gunpowder Plot or anything, but it’s good. It’s bloody good. You see, I’m just not thinking about it. For someone like me, who thinks, not thinking is a pretty big achievement. I’m just not thinking about it.

You see, if I was more politically inclined, I have no doubt I could raise anarchy within England. If I wasn’t working for an insurance company, I’d bet my novelty Christmas boxers (with dancing Xmas puddings on) that I could convince a small European country to give itself up to my devious mind. The glories and riches would surpass even our wildest dreams. I’d ride around the capital (called Le Capital) on a donkey-drawn cart, distributing berets and merriment to all who passed me. And I’d have a donkey sanctuary for all the decrepit old donkeys. Castles would be built all along the beach – five of them – and I’d ask the most ravishing of Danish princes to come and live a life of luxury there, and I’d call on them every Sunday and we’d play strip Cluedo. I’d have a small off-shore island devoted to pot. Called the Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World of Pot. And I’d let Jules tend to it, a reverend to his weed-y flock. And –

Woah, speak of the devil. My phone’s buzzing. And playing You Sexy Thing. Which means its Jules. There are times when me and the universe align.

Street Boy stole my phone after that night at Didz’s. He stole my phone. Three mint humbugs. Four pound thirty seven. My last cigarettes.

When I finally got up off my bed, after he left me, and turned down the narrow hall towards the living room/kitchen/vodka store, I stood on something. In the space where our discarded clothing and writhing bodies used to be. The three tenners that I’d let fall to the floor, they’d gone. But there was my phone, with its missing nine key, three mint humbugs, four pound thirty seven and a fresh pack of Marlboro Lights (Reds are far too hardcore.)

It made a lump lodge in my throat. That he kept them. Noticed what he’d taken. Left them for me. Don’t know if it’s a fitting goodbye or a shy form of apology. Don’t know if I should sit and curse myself for being so fucking stupid for not realising that that was all it was ever going to be between us. Or if I should let my heart spin like a hat on a cane in all its delirious shades of hope. Don’t know how long I’ll feel used for. Cheap. Don’t know how long it’ll be before I let someone else touch me. Don’t know how long it’ll be till anyone wants to touch me again. All I do know is that my want is like poison and all it does is hurt. And I don’t think any of it is worth it, because the cold that manned the defences around my heart is laying waste to my soul. And I’m not sure there ever was a time where I was anything but wasting away inside my repulsive skin that just drives people away and always wants too fucking much.

But I don’t think about it.

My phone vibrates in a more irate manner. It makes me jump. The woman sat next to me on the bus home from work – we’ll call her Phyllis – doesn’t look too pleased at being jabbed with my bony elbows. But I wriggle my phone out my pocket and drown her out by humming along.

“Jules?”

“Pete.”

Jules sounds irritated. Wonder if Stan’s still doing that biting thing. Works for me, but you never know.

“Jules?”

“You’re shagging my boyfriend, man.”

“No I’m not.”

It’s the truth. If I was shagging him right now, Phyllis wouldn’t half object.

“Yeah, you are. Or you have been.”

“Well… only a little bit.”

I should care about this. I know I should. There’s part of my mind that’s vainly attempting to care, but it’s like prodding an elephant with a toothpick. Bound to irritate and receive little to no response. And laziness is nice, and I like nice things. Who doesn’t? Even Buddhist monks get those nice orange robes.

Wish I lived in an episode of Happy Days. Not a thanksgiving special – they were dire – but a normal episode. Where everything’s nice, and it never rains, and we all slick our hair back and get milkshakes. Milkshakes are nice.

But we’d have to get rid of the Fonz, though. Usurp him from his throne. There is no room in nice for pouty people with leather jackets and greasy hair. Us nice people in our buttoned-up cardigans and poodle skirts and crisp, pressed trousers and starched boxers will beat them off with hockey sticks. Which might not be very nice, but nastiness is all the cruel people understand. Otherwise they just take, and leave your four pound thirty seven behind –

Shit, Jules is talking at me.

“…I can’t believe you!”

I can’t believe me either. But I can’t believe it’s not butter. I am not to be trusted with matters such as these.

Twenty seven’s too old to be adopted, isn’t it?

Could hand myself over to some cult, let them lead my life for me. They might make me shave my head though. Baldness is not for me. I reckon I have an odd-shaped head. Maybe I could become an Elvis impersonator. Go to Vegas and eat my own body weight. Just impersonate someone else so I don’t have to make any more bad decisions or live with their consequences.

Hmm. Could just claim that I’m merely impersonating Pete Doherty and all this is someone else’s fault entirely.

“You just start shagging my boyfriend…”

Jules takes a deep sigh. His breath and rage run low at the same time. Oxygen makes him angry, you see. His lungs like tar and carbon monoxide and nicotine streaking through them. Getting a sharp intake of air that contains none of these makes his little air sacs get snappy. When his air sacs get snappy, Jules gets snappy. Like the bastard child of a Yorkshire terrier and Yogi bear.

Oh – breath done. Here we go:

“Pete! You don’t even fucking like Stan, man!”

It’s true. Stan’s not nice. Nice people don’t sneak into the living room and wake up someone who’s sleeping so they can get a blow job before their boyfriend wakes up.

Bob Geldof wouldn’t do that. Though he is good for trying to save the world, most people probably find him irksome. Who’s nice?

“…You just start fucking him all over the apartment the minute my back’s turned –”

Dave Grohl. Big teeth. He’s nice. And he wouldn’t do that to –

Hold on. I've been fucking him all over the apartment?

Historical Accuracy Police to Jules, over. Come in Jules, over.

“Er – Jules. He’s been fucking me all over the apartment the minute your back’s turned.”

Phyllis looks decidedly green. It clashes with her purple hat.

Dave Grohl might be rather taken with the notion of a purple hat. Wonder where she got it from. It’d warm up my skin tone.

“I don’t care! Point is, you came onto my boyfriend –”

“You WHAT!?”

I think I killed Phyllis.

Jules takes a you’re-trying-my-motherfucking-patience-sigh. With Jules’ monotone, you have to learn to infer sighs.

“You came onto my boyfriend, Pete.”

“He came onto me! He’s a sexual predator!”

Phyllis is a goner. The monotonous ‘beeeeeep’ of the flat lining is playing havoc with my mobile signal.

“I don’t fucking care who came on to who. Fact is, you’ve been fucking my boyfriend. A lot, man, and that’s just not good.”

Dave Grohl wouldn’t use this opportunity to reiterate that it’s him that’s been fucking me. Dave and his big teeth would appreciate that, really, that fact is neither here nor there.

How the fuck did Jules find out? He never would’ve worked it out on his own, never. When he tried to do a Rubik’s cube, he sat it on his coffee table and stared at it for an hour, whilst drinking Heineken through a big curly neon pink straw. I asked him what he was doing. Apparently he was ‘psyching the fucker out, man’. Then he got annoyed and threw it out the window. The top layer smashed off it and now it’s a makeshift art-deco ashtray.

“How d’you find out?”

Jules’ voice goes weary.

“Stan told me.”

Stan told him? Stan. Told. Him?

What!?

“Jules, have you and I been shagging the same Stan?”

“Huh?”

I replay my question. It made no sense. Arse.

Scrap Happy Days. Shrink the globe and I’ll snort it, then the world can live in my brain and it’ll all make sense all of the time. And all these people will all just be a microscopic blot on the gooey lining of my cranium. Except Street Boy. I’ll sneeze him out.

Whenever I think his name, I get drop-kicked in the chest.

But I don’t think about it.

I’ve been not thinking about it all day, at work, in some ratty old grey suit that my boss mocked because it’s easily two inches too short around the ankles, and I’m not wearing any socks. My dark brown suit’s shoved into a heap in the corner of my bedroom, because I don’t think about it. I’m good at not thinking about it. I nearly flooded the loos because I left a tap running, and managed to forward all my emails to everyone at work when I meant to delete them. Mary looked most concerned. Is it my fault I’ve got files of Justin Timberlake photos that people just happen to send to me, that I most certainly don’t look at when I’m bored in the office?

Shame the world doesn’t stop just because I’m not thining about it.

“Look Jules, I’m really sorry.”

I really would be really sorry if I cared. My brain’s in that room they use for carrying out the death penalty, strapped down behind the soundproof glass. It’s straining and screaming emotions and feelings at me, but my body’s stood in the room opposite, coldly watching, completely detached and fully prepared to witness its demise.

Maybe I should get my nose pierced. Or a Mohican. A proper one. Then I’d get fired. And I’d never get another job. It’s extraordinary that I’ve managed to get so far with little to no noticeable talent. Actually, it’s impossible that someone of my charisma and overwhelming charm has no talent. I must have some, hiding its light under a bushel.

I’ve got a lot of points on my Tesco Clubcard.

Sit back in my seat, satisfied. That’ll make a nice epitaph. Not quite quoth the raven nevermore, but not half bad.

Phyllis will be needing an epitaph before me, though. I could let her share mine, since I killed her with my screeching. I was defending my honour, for which volume and shrillness are always required. A bit of a case of too little, too late where my honour’s concerned, but it’s always worth a punt.

Poor Phyllis. Another casualty to add to my list.

I swallow. And don’t think about it.

If I was thinking about it, I’d sigh. One of those tears-welling-up sighs that choke you. And then I’d probably sniff, as I always get a wee bit snottery when I'm upset. And then I’d realise that I'm an idiot. And I’d ask myself what the fuck did I expect? I’m so desperate for some slither of happiness I look for it in all the places I know it’ll never be just because I’m too scared to go after the real thing. And then I’d realise I did go after the real thing, only somewhere down the line I fucked it up and now I don’t know what I’m left with, but it doesn’t seem to add up to much of anything. And then I’d apologise properly, beg forgiveness. Tell Jules that I never meant it, not really, because even though his Stan was fucking me all over his apartment the minute his back was turned, I was imagining someone else. Someone who fucked me over completely. And then Jules would probably shout some more. But then I’d tell him about Street Boy, tell him about everything, how he just fucking left me behind and got himself out. Jules would light up a cigarette and take a deep breath – the kind that clicks halfway through, as he relaxes – and tell me everything’s okay, and none of this is really my fault, and that it’s not right, because it’s just not.

Dunno if I’d believe him, that this was none of my fault, but it’d be nice to hear someone say it all the same.

So thank God I’m not thinking about it. Crying in public when you have a cock and you pass the age of seven is not socially acceptable.

“Pete? You there?”

“Not especially.”

“Huh?”

“Jules, I’m really sorry.”

“Whatever, man.”

I dredge the recesses of my mind for scraps of genuine remorse and conviction and aim for equal measures of both.

“Seriously, I’m sorry. I really –”

Shit! My stop. I scramble for the bell. Drop my phone and have to scramble for that too. Good job I gave up on dignity, innit?

“Fuck!”

Phyllis tuts at me. I smile at her. Clamp phone back to my ear like a lifeline.

“Sorry.”

She tuts again.

“You said that already.”

“Not you, Jules.”

“Huh?”

“What!?”

The bus driver glares at me from the reflection of his rear-view mirror:

“Are you getting off or what?”

“Yes!”

Phyllis moves her shopping bag. Grudgingly. Even the dog printed on the fabric seems to scowl at me. Phyllis herself glares as two cans of Heinz Big Leek and Potato soup make a bid for freedom, rolling down the bus. Even when I run after them and hand them back to her, she still glares. That’s what you get for being a Good Samaritan these days. Fuck all.

“Sorry,” I say again. It cuts no cheese with Phyllis.

“Man – you’ve said that already, saying it again won’t –”

“Julian! Shut up!”

Flustered is not a good look.

“Oi. Any time tonight you fancy actually getting off, mate?”

“Sorry!”

I run down the bus, falling over on my ankle as it starts to move off the minute one foot has left the step. Start making my way back to my flat.

The cracked concrete and tab-end scarred tarmac seem to miss the weight of Street Boy’s presence as much as I do. Everything's sunny and amplified today.

Here I am, cowering in my head so I can play hide-and-seek with the fear in my heart.

Part of me wonders if it ever happened at all. There's no proof. Just a round cigarette burn in my hallway carpet that I hate. It shackles me with loneliness and lets pathetic drag along, the ball on the end of my chain. The fact a round cigarette burn in my carpet is allowed to mean so much, when all it does is mean nothing at all.

Street Boy’s vicious hand, that clamped itself around my heart some time ago, digs its blunt nails in and clenches into a fist. Wants to leave a scar.

Can feel Stan’s hands all over me.

Why am I so shit?

I wish I was something, y’know? Wish I had something to wish for.

***

I’m in the bath. In the company of others, should I happen to mention that my grotty three room flat only has a bath, I always add ‘but it’s got a shower attachment thingy!’ as an afterthought. Baths, apparently, are exceptionally girly. It would dent my prestigious masculine image to admit to bathing.

Technically, in literary metaphor terms, I should be scrubbing away or holding my breath underwater, exorcising the demons in my soul and the guilt wrapped up in my skin. But I’m not. The water’s so deep I’m half floating. I’m watching the fluff from between my toes wiggle about in the water, becoming jellyfish. Also, I’m abusing the power of aromatherapy pulse point gel. It’s a lavender firecracker that bulldozes your senses and feels like its paint stripper masquerading as some relaxant. I like it though. Subtlety is never my strong point. I was playing games with my nipples, making them snap to attention in the cold air outside of the bathwater before letting them drown their sorrows in the peaceful warmth of the bath again. But then that got boring, so I covered them in lavender pulse point gel, until they turned an odd blue/purple colour. And are exceptionally slippery.

Normally, I feel the need to point out, I do not harass my nipples. Mainly because I don’t like the word. It makes me snigger. Like ‘groin’. There’s something far too explicit about it for my liking. But today they are my only friend. Normally I have my cock, but after blaming Stan and all buzzing insects, I have seen the light and since come to the conclusion that my cock is, in fact, the Source of All Evil. It even gets the capitals required for the official title. Wonder if there could be an official naming ceremony? I think it’d like that, a last hurrah, since it is never to be trusted or used again.

Underwater, my pot belly seems to grow. My gangly frame billows out in the distortion, flesh and skin magnified, stained pink in the heat, like some baroque painting. That’s one for Dr Miriam Stoppard: Dear Miriam, I think I’m a Ruben’s woman trapped in a twenty-first century gay man’s body. What should I do?

I clasp my hand to my head like a heroine. It’s important to be cinematic at all times. I’ve seen The Truman Show. It could happen to you. It could be happening right now. Which is why I never sneeze, if I can help it. No one looks good when they sneeze.

Something hammers at my front door.

If I am being broadcast around the world right now, then I hope the director interprets my scowl as being hark! An unwelcome interruption! Like in the old silent films.

Bet it’s the fucking window cleaner. He’s a persistent little sod with a yappy sausage dog that would make a superb kebab.

I wrap a towel round myself. Then one round my hair. Then realise my nipples are still radiating that odd pewter shade. Bugger it.

Something hammers harder.

Maybe it’s Jules, coming to punch me. Or Kate-wench. I get the distinct impression that since I’m not thinking about everything, Fate should have some trick up its slithery sleeve to force me to think about all the consequences I shield myself from.

The towel round my body gets hoisted up underneath my armpits and I try and stride towards my door looking as masculine as possible. Whoever is behind the door may have to get a greeting of ‘I have a cock, honest!’ Though, if challenged, I doubt I’ll prove it. It’s nothing Jules hasn’t seen before, but last time he laughed and I don’t think my ego has yet recovered.

Being haughty in a towel is something my sister manages exceptionally well, especially when my gawky mate Luke used to come round to ours in the summer holidays and fix his eyes on the white cotton like he had x-ray vision. Sadly, unlike the pasty skin and crooked teeth, aloof dignity is a Doherty trait that skipped merrily past me in the genetics race. I settle for hoping my face isn’t as hot and glowing red as it feels.

There is not a cheeseburger’s chance in fat camp of my face being anything less than neon red. You could fry an egg on it.

I wrangle open my trusty Yale lock. My door swings open.

Seeing the emotions flash across someone’s face as they stand before you is bizarre. Like watching the advertising screens change in Time Square out the corner of your eyes, fleeting glimpses of something whole your brain immediately slots together and recognises.

Initially, there’s just an apology, taut in the lines that furrow his brow and concern and guilt in the tight press of his lips. Then, as the door swings open wider, they get cast away in a wave of something that makes me feel far better, purely because I know how to respond to it. Something that’s best summed up as What. The. Fuck?

Has Street Boy never seen a man with a towel knotted tight under his armpits before? And one round his hair?

Considering his acute degrees of grubbiness, no may be a plausible answer.

We stand there for a moment. Me, pink flush of my skin from the steam fading in the cool air. Street Boy, eyes wild, cowering inside his leather jacket, not yet stepping forward into the open spill of the doorway. Both of us standing there, eyes wide, disbelieving.

He’s lost. Normally, at times like this, he’d be smashing something up, I reckon. Scratching glass against his skin or kicking out at a wall. Ruining something that can’t fight back. But, now, he’s defeated. Stretched thin and completely lost.

I swallow. My brain clicks into gear.

It’s Street Boy.

A shiver runs up my back, a delicious guilty thrill that purrs into my skin.

Street Boy.

God. Fuck.

Street Boy.

“This a bad time? ‘Can come back later…”

The words get mumbled in the vague direction of my navel, where his eyes are firing and ricocheting around like haywire bullets.

“I…”

There’s no end to the sentence. There’s no start to the sentence. This has never stopped me from forming noise before:

“I…”

Eyes dart up to me, a guilty schoolboy scared of punishment, but begging for it all the same.

“I…”

For fuck’s sake. Vocal chords are wasted on the likes of me.

Take a deep breath, drawing the air in through my parted lips until my mouth runs dry and my lungs sting. Get surprised when I exhale. Because it comes out as:

“Carl…”

A shiver jolts down his spine. Shoulders jerk under the leather, making it press fleetingly against the tainted skin of his neck and blanch it white where it momentarily fits too tight. He’s a traitor to all sense, standing here in front of me. Contradiction to all I know. He was a heartbreak waiting to happen, they always are. But now he’s here. Paused in my open doorway, shrouded in shadow cast by the dim lights of the hall, eyes dark and shining, mouth nervous, skin that just stuns me.

And I'm pink and steaming and flushed with a towel under my armpits.

Great. He takes my breath away and I’m half-man half-salmon.

Of all the people who’ve told you you’re beautiful, how many of them have you believed? How many of them have you wanted to believe? How many bothered to say it at all?

Wolfman never said I was beautiful. Kind of respect him for it. Because I would’ve known it was a lie, a baited hook snared around my trouser fly, and it would’ve hurt. To hear something like that exchanged as currency. But, suppose, you never can tell with the past. Might have believed him. Might have seen some truth in it, somewhere.

I want to say it to Street Boy, as he stands, shrinking before me. I want to say it to Carl most of all, but I’m not sure I can. Probably get lost in translation between the scared quake in his hands as he toys with an unlit cigarette and the violence he wants to resort to, that I can see in tight flare of his shoulders, like a bird coiled for flight or a soldier raising up his shield. He might hit me if I say it. Keep everything simple.

Wish I could say something though. Whenever we had to do those minute silence things at school, I always got hiccups or was condemned to my stomach growling for fodder, the noise of my presence echoing ridiculously loud around the silent four walls. And now it’s just me and him, waiting in my hall again, two runaways standing at a halfway house, trying to find the way home.

Maybe not the way home. Because that’s both of us turning on our heels and turning our backs and walking away, me shutting the bathroom door with a lonely click as he turns the handle on my front door so it doesn’t slam and the Yale clicks into place. Walking away at the same time isn’t something we do. He leaves: I’m left in his wake.

But I don’t want that now.

I don’t know what I want.

An apology?

It’d be nice, have some sense of justice about it. Strictly speaking I should be pulling the ol’ woman-scorned act now (a speciality of the Doherty clan) and slapping his face with the broad flat of my palm and watching as the synthetic flush streaks his skin with shame. But I don’t want one. Don’t think he’d mean it. I mean, he’d think he would, I can see that in the tight curl at the corners of his mouth. You can tell the prospect of apologies doesn’t sit too well with him. Makes me think that he hasn’t cared enough about anything to apologise for a long time. Or maybe he’s so tired of apologising for just being himself, he’s forgotten the sickly taste of guilt and duty that backs you into a corner, makes the word ‘sorry’ slick off the tongue.

Maybe he’s sorry for leaving, or thinks he is, at any rate. But he can’t be sorry for all that happened before. He can’t be. He made himself do it, held me in place with trembling hands. Made himself.

So he can’t be sorry, not really, for that.

What else could I want?

Two cold hands to be ripped out the safe haven of the pockets where they hide, thumbs and fingers wrapping round my arms and slamming me back against the wall? The dull thud of pain, the shock of determined cold skin digging into my warm limbs, the shock of him making me gasp? It’s so fucking easy to want him. How could anyone not? He’s so small, slight, but he doesn’t seem it, not really. Only in that way of some panther or predator being coiled in the undergrowth, stalking its prey, waiting to kill. Making himself smaller so the fury coils tighter. So he can’t be seen. I don’t understand how anyone could turn away from the taut lines and shocking contrasts that he’s capable of. He’s every command I've ever wanted. Every submission I’ve ever given, been told to give. He makes me feel so unbelievably out of control, I’m just hanging on his every move and waiting for him to take mercy and cut me loose. But then there’s that telltale tremor in his hands, like he can feign cruelty and tear me to shreds with his anger, but he’s still scared of me, even when I do exactly as he wants. Even more when I do exactly as he wants. And it’s how he’ll come after me, move slowly up to me when I lash out or walk away. But he’s too scared to do anything more than wait for me – my hand to draw him into me and fit all the jagged bones and soft skin of our bodies together. He takes the first step, I make the first move. It’s intoxicating, being given that power. The wide plea in his eyes as he looks up at me, filthy in its innocence. It’s begging to not be hurt; but that’s all he knows. It’s all he can do. Hurt.

How can anyone not want him?

Those wide blue eyes are on me now. He’s taken the first steps up to my door. It’s up to me to make the first move.

Who does that? Who goes to all the effort of putting themselves so undoubtedly in control of their own body that every gesture gets snapped by my mind and falls to the floor with the soft flutter of a Polaroid? Who does all that, only to lay the control at the feet of someone else, hesitantly, like it’s a fragile gift? Who goes through all that fucking hassle only to claw it all back when the chips are finally down and the clothes finally come off? Fucking hell.

Why doesn’t he care about himself enough to let him get what he wants?

Street Boy’s lips move:

“Please…”

Bastard stole my line.

He stumbles over the word, not used to saying it.

Please what? is the immediate response, biting away at my tongue. Fuck you is the second.

I just look at him. Clench my jaw so I can’t speak.

Blue eyes pour through me. I don’t understand how I can want someone so much, someone I’m afraid to touch.

“Why are you here?”

The words out my mouth surprise even me. Mainly because they make sense. But partially down to the sigh of defeat that accompanies them. I'm just some lazy grey cloud drifting along the violent licks of midnight blue on his stormy horizon.

His eyes dart with pinpricks of hurt, a flash of pain. I just asked the one thing he didn’t want me to say. There was a time when my brain would gleefully declare fifteen-love from its umpire chair, towering above the world. Now it just floats around doing fuck all.

He shrugs.

He’s a bit damp, I notice. His hair’s frizzing up in small curls around his face and there are small dots of water glistening on his jacket.

I frown:

“S’it drizzling outside?”

The apology pleading on his face switches firmly back to What. The. Fuck?

I tighten my towel absent-mindedly. Actually, not absent-mindedly. I do it mindedly. I am fully aware of doing it, wondering if I could thread myself through the loops of cotton and stay there, safe and silent. Instead of turning into an eighty-two year old woman who makes small talk about the fucking weather. With rent boys. What? My Nan’s still got it. What else d’you spend your pension on?

Can see Street Boy flipping the two questions over in his mind. His eyes back away from me.

“Yeah, s’raining a bit.”

I nod.

Suicide Is Painless starts playing in the speakers of my head. I refuse to believe it is trying to tell me something.

The silence between us is hideous.

Wish we could just step back to that moment in Didz’s bathroom. I’d kiss him, soft at first, eyes laced shut but the image of our merging reflections in the mirror burning low in my mind. Kiss harder, bend him back toward the tile to make him gasp at the cold touch of the wall. I’d trace the hollow of his cheek as his mouth hung open to let the shock of breath out. I’d draw my fingers all over him, make his skin tremble under my touch. And when he’s alone, he’d feel the ghost of my fingers, see my want as marks – not flaws, not stamps of ownership, not medals to display to the world; just a memory that constantly repeats, never letting him forget that I’ll want him. Like my heart’s loaded dice and he can’t help but lose.

He must know I still want him, though, otherwise he wouldn’t be here.

“Pete…”

Hate how he says my name. It’s a shit name. Someone told me once it means ‘stone’ in French. That’s a cloak of glory if ever I’ve seen one. Hate how he says it and how it stirs a lump in my throat and what feels like the potential apocalypse in my cock. Since it’s the Source of All Evil.

I fidget in my towel. Getting this turned on with only Tesco’s finest cotton to keep you modest shouldn’t be allowed.

Got it, I’ll rearrange it around my hips in a more masculine and potentially concealing fashion. God bless distractions.

Two amused eyes watch my wrestle with the towel as my back pricks with goosebumps in the cool air of the hall. Wait for some mocking comment to be flung my way, drag my tongue out to play, let me needle away under his skin till he’s forced to snap again and he’ll feel aligned enough to use me again. Might be my turn to snap, bend him over some convenient inanimate object and fuck him and toss him out afterwards, straight away, before the sweat’s had chance to sink back into my skin.

Hmm.

I may look more traditionally manly, but I don’t half feel exposed. Especially since Street Boy’s regarding my chest as if I've got eighteen nipples arranged to look like a smiley face.

I haven’t. Just for the record.

“Are they supposed to be that colour?”

My surprise at his words is nothing in comparison to the look on Street Boy’s face. Even the tone isn’t right. All the words are incredulous as always, but they are loud and clear. He glances over his shoulder, as if expecting his voice to be playing tricks on him.

I look down.

Piss it.

Fucking aromatherapy gel bollocks. Fucking luminous purple nipples. Fucking fuckery.

My cheeks flare a brilliant pillar box red. Beautiful contrasting colours, there. Make them all the more eye-catching.

I draw the remaining fraying threads of my dignity back around me.

“You wouldn’t know, would you? Bit hard to see the details of someone’s body when you’re slamming them down into their own mattress.”

I wait for the hurt expression to cross his face.

It doesn’t come.

He sneers:

“Fuck off. You weren't complaining.”

My jaw drops.

What?

What!?!

What?!?!!??

“You think I enjoyed it? Think I had no greater ambition in life than to come with my mouth full of bedcovers and wait for you to run away from me as fast as you could without breaking a fucking sweat?”

He flinches.

“Mind you, it’s not as if you care if I enjoyed it or not, I mean, you got your thirty quid, didn’t you? Just a fucking transaction.”

The sharp angles of his body harden, back in comfortable territory of argument and rage. It’s our Rome; all roads lead there.

“You were the one that got the fucking money out!”

“You were the one that took it!”

Shame’s an awful shade on that skin. Makes me hate myself for putting it there.

“S’what I fucking do. Fuck for money. Good for one fucking thing, aren’t I.”

The fact his voice doesn’t make it into a question kills me. Because he doesn’t know what I think. Probably doesn’t know that I think, the rubbish that spews out my flapping mouth at times. Keeping silent and letting him do what he wanted with me didn’t get me any closer, didn’t get either of us any closer, to anything. Just confirmed all his worse suspicions.

I should say it out loud. But I can’t.

Street Boy carries on, defiance in his eyes shrinking into resignation, taking my silence as agreement.

“Fucking stupid of me to come back here with you in the first place.” A bitter laugh rings out from his mouth. “You with some fucking respectable office job… M’so fucking stupid to think – to want –”

He glances away, blinking furiously to try and hold it all back. And that’s it, the moment right there. Face half-turned away from me, lips still apart with the words he won’t say. That’s the chance for me to take the two steps up to him, fold my hand back round his neck, put it in its place, and kill his terrifying silence with a kiss, capture him back up in these desperate hands of mine and never break for air.

It’s the chance, I can taste it.

It’s the chance. I don’t take it.

He looks back up at me. And it’s gone.

He glares, daring me to disagree.

“See, fucking stupid…”

I snort:

“What, because I’ve got some office job I’m so much more respectable and worthwhile than you are?”

There’s that charge in his pupils again, intoxicating power charging on, gunning in his eyes.

“I’m a fucking waste.”

He rolls the final word around his tongue, relishing the taste of the syllables, drawing his lips to a shut like stage curtains coming closed at the end of an act, shutting off the sordid secrets behind.

I just stand there, stupidly, looking at him.

He smirks.

“Fucking waste.”

He shrugs, maliciously, eyes rich with bloodlust, the thrill of the way the words hurt him to say and pain me to hear firing the venom in his dark stance as he continues:

“This is all I’m ever gonna be. M’twenty five and this is it…”

Twenty five? Hold on just one minute here. Twenty five? He’s been twenty five all along and masquerading as seventeen? Scheming mumbly little fucker.

My indignation flares for a second, like he wanted it to. Then the sight of him, trying to shield himself with defiance like an Empress turned out into rags tugs at me. Draws me back to reality. Back to him standing there, lying about his age and hiding it until he’s got me to care enough so the truth will hurt.

And I don’t care. Sounds stupid, but I just don’t care. I lie too. Words aren’t honest, they aren’t supposed to be. The truth’s in between the lines and its different in everybody’s eyes. His lies, my lies, they’re weapons, defences. I know. The truth’s the final one, the one where everybody fails and no one cares to venture.

He blinks. His eyes burn.

“This is all I’ll be. Some body for people to paw over. Fucking waste of potential.”

The way he sneers the word, it’s a rifle crack in my brain. Shot taken, waiting to be reloaded.

Maybe someone didn’t make him feel worthless, after all, I think. Maybe everyone tells him all the things he could be, how much he could be fucking worth. And all he knows is that weight of expectation, dragging him down to the fucking pit of the world – some dingy back alley where it’s easier to not care about yourself at all than to carry the ghosts of promise and possibility around in your head. Where you can’t escape and can only fear all that you could’ve been.

The thought sickens me to my stomach.

No small wonder he treats himself like a commodity, really. Expectation places a high price tag on your conscience.

What better way to lay waste to all the histories people have planned out, prophesised, than to reduce yourself to nothing in your own mind? Recoil from your own disappointed eyes in the mirrors’ reproachful reflection. Loathe yourself, fear yourself, surrender all control to the highest fucking bidder – crumpled tenners dropping as useless as dead leaves, or your own fury at yourself for being so much less than you deserve.

Maybe all the people in his past, the voices and smiles he carries around in his head, maybe they didn’t keep everything away from him. Maybe they gave it all, built him up into some myth of the person he could be. And all he could see was vultures swarming round, all greed and no concern, building him up for a fall.

It’s easy, I suppose, to hate what you see in the mirror, if you know in your heart it’s not quite good enough. Bit too tall and pasty and with too short an attention span and hair that never quite follows your personality trait of just doing as its-bloody-well-told. I know that; almost everyone does. But what rips right through him, Carl, it’s worse than that. Warped and twisted, got more violent and grotesque over time. The insidious toll of years of examining himself, not finding evidence of any flaws, of not seeing anything less than mesmerising trapped and fighting within his frame, only to be left with the cold, hollow haunt of dissatisfaction. And never knowing why.

I look at him, again, snatch my eyes away from the yellowing radiator with its tired click of pipes. See the caustic dance of sickening joy in his eyes. It’s not some poetic demons in his head that he listens to and drowns out in liquor or cold hands tugging at his fly. It’s not a belief, for him; no object of faith that he blindly puts trust in without any proof – not something coaxing words can dispel. It’s knowledge. He just knows. And, to his mind, the evidence is there, loud and clear, every time he catches a glimpse of his own skin and feels it crawl under his gaze.

That’s why he’s so fucking weary, all leaden sighs and heavy gestures. There’s only so long you can fight yourself.

My two brown eyes fix him in place. Struggle to keep pity out.

The smirk turns fucking vicious; upper lip curling that obscene scarlet onto his skin like some shard of glass slicing though it. So cruel a gesture I expect it to scar.

“See?”

His long fingers curl into eager fists by his side. Not a violent threat, though, not this time. Just nine blunt fingernails digging half-moons into his palms, preparing himself to restrain any reaction when I nod my head in defeat or mutter out some pathetic words of contradiction.

It’s a test, all this, all of it. Fucking me like that, mask of cruelty disfiguring desire. Leaving afterwards. Showing up here. It’s a fucking test, one he probably isn’t even aware of. Drawing me in, dragging out the darkest desires and intents hiding in the shadows of his soul, then just cutting me loose. Coming back, all apologetic eyes swiftly retreating back into rage. Just waiting for me to prove to him that he was right all along by me letting him walk out of here. That he is too malevolent and made ugly by rage to deserve anything more than the life he’s condemned onto himself. It’s a fucking test: pulling people in, laying the worst part of himself out, then the sadistic stab of pleasure as they fail and push him away, recoil in horror. The lonely joy of proving your own worst fears to be true and the sad sigh of disappointment he’ll pretend he doesn’t hear as a fraying thread of hope snaps.

Fucking hell.

Fucking hell.

A bitter smile catches his mouth, traps it in some secret proud curl of his lips and seals it with the faltering defiance in his eyes. He’s so simple in his sadness, almost a complete stranger swathed in shades of black and blue that dance in the light of my hallway as he turns away from me and reaches for the door handle. The door’s still ajar, like he was plotting his escape even as he raised his fist to hammer on the wood. He doesn’t bother with any pretence as he leaves. No gestures – angry glares, sarcastic sneers, no squared shoulders or nonchalant toss of his head. He looks stripped now. Bare. Nothing left to hide, no game of desire left to play. So simple in his sadness, resigned; as if he knew I’d just let his too-big shoes scuff the stairs as they walk away from me. So simple in his sadness, but I don’t think Street Boy will be able to whisper lies to himself and let his cruel pride keep him from loneliness tonight.

I let him go. Remain standing there in my towel, eyes fixed on all the spaces he’s left behind.

Fucking hell.


	10. Chapter 10

It’s my turn.

My fingers shake, make no mistake, I’m absolutely fucking terrified, but it’s my turn.

I let him leave my flat, the hand of my silence forcing him onwards like a traitor’s knife in the back. I didn’t watch him as he walked away, shoes clunking down the stairs. The flat door was left open in his wake, like if he didn’t change anything, it’s possible he never would’ve been there at all. Reflections of my yellowing hall light as they caught in the creases of his jacket, his jeans, the curls in his hair, they keep replaying in my mind. Somewhere riddled into the slump of his shoulders and the lethargy of his feigned defiance, my heartstrings were caught as he turned away. Walked away. They frayed with his every step. And I cursed myself for letting him go.

But it was all I could do.

Because as much as I love the thrill of the chase, my heart can’t belong to someone who forever runs. No matter how often they wrestle their nerves into the dirt to return. It’s what we do every time: he takes the first step, I make the first move. But then the camera shudders and blurs us within the frame, cuts part of us out the picture, and the perfect scene my daydreams roved around gets mangled into some half-arsed reminder that I’ll devote hours of my life trying desperately to correct.

Couldn’t find my voice, that night in my flat when he came back. His eyes were furious, gagging for a loophole in anything I’d say. He would’ve snuck away afterwards. That’s what we do. Because we’re stupid, really. Because we’re both sad and tired and scared of being alone. And we’re both sad and tired and scared of being with anyone. And we’re both a bit too scared of ourselves to trust anyone. Too scared to trust ourselves not to hurt. Both too reliant on words and gestures that lie. I don’t quite know why I trust that his desire isn’t fake, like so many things are, and I hope its not just my healthy dose of overwhelming desperation working overtime like it has been so many times before. I dunno. He keeps coming back, and I keep coming back. Somewhere in there, between us, there’s something.

But I couldn’t say that to him the other night. He would’ve twisted it round with his steadfast and completely skewed logic. Been drawn in by the seductive whisper in his mind, the one that tells him all the things he loathes to hear but explains away all the mysteries of his soul that he can’t explain. I couldn’t say it.

Can’t remember the last time I turned someone away like that, said no when yes is so much fucking easier to trip off the tongue. Even though it crushes me, it feels good a little bit, too. Because I always say yes, because I’d rather be with any body than be on my own. It just feels good, a little bit. And Street Boy’s human after all. He’s still something to be scared of, amazed at. But not something to be in awe of. You can’t place someone else so far above yourself that everything they do is magic and then expect them to want you in return. You can’t. At best they won’t believe you, and you’ll spend your lifetime trying in vain to convince them that they are as miraculous as the version of them lust has created in your head. At worst, they’ll believe every word you say. And if you place yourself beneath them, then they’ll believe that too, and leave you for someone better. It’s better to want someone human, because that’s all they ever can be and that’s all you’ll ever need to ask of them.

Eventually, you just have to say no just to check you still can.

So this time it’s my turn.

The sun moved slowly round its one way dial, dragging and sending itches of dissatisfaction up my spine. Work passed in a wave of tedium and quiet, since Didz isn’t speaking to me (not that we talked much), Stan isn’t speaking to me (not that we talked much) and Jules isn’t speaking to me (which is to be expected). I think I typed a lot. My brain’s attention was cleanly divided between coordinating my fingers to pick at the hard skin at the back of my partially-healed ear piercing and thinking about last night, when Street Boy came back. Part of me did spare a moment to wonder why the hell no one was noticing the fact that I was doing sod all and being treated like a pariah by my colleagues, but then that part of my brain went back to my hard-skin picking. And wishing I had some form of time machine so I could work it that Street Boy hadn’t seen my nipples glowing luminous purple and smelling like someone’s auntie.

Twenty seven hours after I let him go and now it’s my turn.

I caught the last bus back into town about three quarters of an hour ago, spent the journey shaking and being glared at by two chubby teenage girls in tracksuits from the back seat. Scary people. The bus driver seemed most concerned when I got off and left him to fend for himself. Poor sod. I’ve got two quid in my pocket, no phone, no cards. Because I know what I’m like, when nerves twist me in their grip and play voodoo with my resolve. I run. Hide away from the world and convince myself that I made the right decision, because I’m smart and I always do. Because I can’t shoulder the weight of my regrets on my skinny frame. Because I can’t know I’m wrong, because then I can’t forget, and sometimes forgetting is all I’ve got.

So. Now I’m not giving myself a choice. In the clarity of last night, in the clarity of all the days spent spying on him out my window, in everything before he held me in place and fucked me like I was nothing, I knew what I wanted. I still know what I want. And now I want it more. But I’m scared of the unknown – if I run back home and cry over repeats of Supermarket Sweep and call in sick tomorrow, I know what’ll happen. I’ll drink until I pass out. And then I’ll wake up with an evil hangover and make myself egg and chips and have a fag or sixty and will probably cry a bit more. It’s bad, but I know it’ll happen. It’s safe. It’s there, trapped in my responses, in my memory. And they always try to draw you back to what you know, lighthouses on a familiar shore. It’ll hurt more this time, because I let myself believe there would be something at the end of the thread I was following blindly other than an irate girlfriend brandishing my boxers like they’re Exhibit A.

Now I want the unknown.

Want the unknown of the dark streets in between the mundane office buildings carved now into black blocks on a midnight blue sky. Want the unknown of seeing him again, watching that spark of anger laced with bad intent pearl feral in his eyes.

I shiver a bit in my suit. I've been standing outside my office building for a good half hour, so it’s hardly surprising, but still. I feel like adrenalin should be lending me the same coat of warmth it gives to pissed up women on hen nights in January, waiting for cabs in halter-neck tops as sleet drives down from the sky. The fingers around my cigarette shake as if they’re out to snap. Bought a pack of Marlboro Lights from the newsagents’ on my way back from work today. Can’t bring myself to open the fresh pack Street Boy left for me, just in case that’s all he leaves me with.

Should probably stop smoking. I’m twitching a lot again.

When I stop smoking, it’ll be time to move. Prise myself off the wall of monstrous concrete I’m leaning on and take the giant leap round the corner, round to the front of the building. Then my feet need to carry on moving, over the chewing gum and irregular paving slabs and patches of glistening tarmac, all the way round to the other side of the building. Keep moving towards that dingy back alley and all the sins it’s seen. Towards that burnt-out building with its cracked black fire escape. Keep moving towards him.

Part of me thinks I should’ve apologised to Jules properly. Got down on my knees and begged forgiveness so I could’ve lured him into being my accomplice. Let him give me a shove. Starting moving is always the hardest part – finding that correct firing of nerves that contract your muscles that leads to your leg bending and forward motion. Once you start, it’s a freefall: your racing heart and searing anticipation won’t let you stop. But, fuck, if I was an athlete, I’d be forever stuck in the starting blocks.

Didn’t call Jules though. Not this time. My fists clench by my sides and the still-glowing embers of my cigarette stutter on the damp ground of the floor. Not this time. Because it’s my turn.

Still can’t move though.

My breath forms a cloud in the night. It always makes me feel special, that. Watching air spin out into something tangible from my lips. Like without me it wouldn’t be there. It’s the little things that change the world, sometimes. Little things that pick the lock on your heart and cut it loose. Little things like “It’s the 143 bus you get home, isn’t it?” and “You fell on your arse when there was that black ice next to where you wait for the bus. And you walked into the lamppost outside your work a few weeks ago.” Little things like when he scowls, the way his upper lip flares with all the words condemned into silence by his scared tongue. Little things.

Elbows make contact with the blunt force of concrete, forcing me upright. My knees are unsteady but my feet seem eager to please.

Go on. Go on.

***

I’m moving.

My eyes are stretched wide in the night.

Brown suit flaps about my legs in the slight cold breeze. Wearing it again, having salvaged it from the corner of my bedroom. Realised it was stupid to surrender my favourite suit into a fate of crumpled disuse because of some cotton myth trapped within it. Everything reminds me of him. My own skin reminds me of him. When you stop pushing memories and sadness onto everything around you, you start to realise that it’s all within yourself. And that makes sadness settle cruelly on your soul. But it also makes you realise you know the cure.

There’s a half-smile on my lips. It’s not confidence, not a smirk. I can tell. It’s wistful. Wishful. Like a war bride checking her mail, dreading and hoping for some word from the front. Never knowing what she’ll get.

The dingy back alley is terrifyingly close but it never gets any closer, no matter how many steps I seem to take.

It’s not so hard to imagine Street Boy out here in the night time, on the prowl, black leather jacket playing musical bodies with the spirit of the night.

I hope he’s there, in that burnt out building. Hope to God he hasn’t gone running back into the arms of Bloke. I can’t imagine him fleeing back to someone just because it’s the easier option – he never takes the fucking easier option.

The silhouette of my destination looms large on the skyline. There’s seventeen steps on that fire escape. Seventeen rusted steps with their flaking black paint and rickety railing, leading up to the second storey where he leads them all. My footfalls might echo loud round the building walls, giving me away. He might meet me at the top, wrench open the door. He might punch me in the face. Again. He might be passed out. He might be curled up in another grungy bedsit with Bloke, sharing a cig and apologising to each other with flirtatious eyes, lingering on the lips. He might be in a faceless room in the Travel Lodge in the centre of town, making the standard-issue hotel carpeting shine with his presence. He might be throwing up in the toilet of a cheap bar. He might be down on his knees before a perfect, hideous, stranger forgetting himself the best way he knows how.

Imagining him with someone else’s hands on him – fingering the ends of his hair, biting at his neck, desecrating his skin – tears at me.

I don’t want him to be mine. He’s had enough people treat him like a possession. I just want him to be with me, maybe, and stay there. And I’ll keep us apart in a dark corner of my heart where we’ll both be okay with ourselves.

Shit.

It’s getting closer.

I don’t know what I’ll say if I find him there. I don’t know what could convince him that I’m anything other than someone who wants him so much it hurts. Don’t even know if I am anything beyond that. I’ve got no secrets or confessions to lure him in with – no stories from my past that will make his face soften out of a scowl as he realises we’re both the same. We’re not the same. I want a soft touch on my heart and a reverent ghost of fingers on my skin; he wants a sharp threat of a knife snarling at him, threatening him, seductive destruction stroking and teasing his skin. He wears his potential to hurt – to draw someone in and just drive them away – like a shield and crest. A badge of honour that scares everyone off. I hate to hurt. Guilt ruins me. We’re both wastes in our own way. He can’t think I don’t fear all I could’ve been. He can’t. But I’m not out to ruin myself like him. Living in my head’s a lonely place to be, because its so fucking hard to let people in and not many care to trespass through the shadowlands of my soul. He lives with his body and blanks out his brain, like if he scowls hard enough it’ll just give up and leave him alone.

But I don’t want someone like me, the same as me. I don’t need to find someone the same as me to convince myself that I’m not alone in the world, that it’s okay to be the way I am. Partly because I know what I’m capable of, know the tricks my mind can play, so I’m not sure I’d trust someone that similar to me anyway. But I want someone different to me. I want him. He fascinates me. I’m so fucking jealous of his freedom, even trapped as it is in anger and fire. I don’t even know if he is any freer than me, not really – he certainly doesn’t believe he is, at any rate. I can’t even explain it. I don’t even want to explain it. But if I think about that instead of worrying about the thousands of possible scenes that could unfold as I finally start walking up that fire escape, then maybe it’ll all work out in the end.

Deep breath. Breathing is more difficult to remember than people give it credit for.

Shit. What if he’s not there?

What if he is, and he doesn’t want me? What if he never wanted me at all? What if I’m really just a transaction and I’ve turned into some crazy stalker who turns up at his burnt out building home and starts spouting utter rubbish because I’ve got it into my deluded head that I’m something more than another Bloke? Oh God. God. Shit.

Deepbreathdeepbreathdeepbreathdeepbreath.

I don’t let myself stop. Don’t let my fingers curl round bricks and concrete of the wall of my office building next to me as I walk down the back alley. My head swirls but I keep on walking. If I stop, I’m a goner. Only so long you can tread water in the sickening bile of sheer terror of your own stomach. I’ve got to keep moving.

The black paint of the fire escape glints in renegade flicks of light stolen from the darkness.

God. Might vomit.

Fingers clutch at the rusting metal of the side railing as if it’ll hold me together. So much easier to shy away from what you want than to try and get it. There’s not enough air in the world to seal me back together tonight. And it makes me sad, chases off the smile from earlier; even the nervous quirk of anticipation in my lips leaves me now. It’s so much easier not to get what you want. And I’m not going to get it, am I? If you add up all the times, all the chances I've had and all the times I've fucked them up, then I’ve had more than my fair share. And he’s just some stranger I scarcely know, dressed up to the nines in lies and desire, and just because he’s all I can think about, just because he’s fucking captured me with the harsh lines of his hipbones and the violent delight of his touch, just because of that, I think I’m fucking entitled to have him back? To have him with me, to have him inside me? Fucking idiot. How fucking stupid can one human be? I don’t know why I can tell the secrets of his soul without him mumbling the words, don’t know why he trusted me to find them. Do know I’m far too fucking stupid for my own fucking good. He won’t be there. He won’t want me. And then I’ll know it for sure, that I was just so fucking desperate not to be alone that I dreamt something more into his poison words and caustic touch. And then I’ll be back on my own again, like I’m clearly fucking supposed to be, and I’ll never have to fucking wonder why no one comes near me, when my desperation and loneliness are so fucking repugnant and grotesque. Being alone should come as no surprise, since it’s all I deserve.

Black paint splinters under my touch.

I stand there, motionless apart from the weight of air crackling dust in my lungs dragging me under. Knowing I broke my own golden rule and stopped, when the only piece of luck I’d had was keeping fucking going and just carrying on for the last few days when all logic and reason I could summon were screaming at me to stop.

I straighten up, stop clutching onto the rail so hard. Knowing I’ve stopped. But I can keep going.

My foot lifts into the air. For a moment I think it’s just going to hang there like a broken Christmas decoration no one will bother to take down now the season of good will has passed. Stationary in the darkness, forgotten.

Then there’s the blank thud of contact as it hits the first stair.

The painful thrill of exhilaration as my left foot follows. Then another dull step, upwards, my body scaling the stairs.

It’s completely new, this. Moving closer to someone in hope, that’s nothing new. Giving what I can in the hope of happiness in return, hell, I do that all the time. But going when there’s only pain waiting? Giving someone both permission and power to hurt me, that’s completely fucking new. And that’s the point, right there, when I realise that this is something completely different. Because he can hurt me, and not many people can. Not many people ever have. It’s such a harder thing to gift over to someone else: the potential for pleasure is easy to place under someone else’s control. The potential for pain is much harder. And that’s what I’ll get. But maybe, for once, it’ll be better to know I tried to get more than a quick shag, even if there’s nothing at the end of it. I can’t blame him for not wanting me. Not when I let him leave, make him leave, every time. Even when I let him pin me and fuck me, I still made him leave. I always make them leave.

I keep going.

It’s not that high, the fire escape stair, but it feels like I’m climbing up to the heavens to try and scar the sun. Feel sick. Dizzy. Palms are clammy as fuck. Not cold anymore, I’m burning up with everything that’s going on under my skin. It’s all too much. Can’t turn back now, but I’d give anything in my possession not to keep on going.

***

At the door.

And I’m an idiot.

Pete Doherty: The Featherweight Idiot Champion of the World.

It’s a fucking fire escape door. It doesn’t do useful things like opening from the outside.

Can’t believe in all the time – all the fucking time – I spent stalking Street Boy with my envious eyes, I didn’t once notice that he was leading Blokes up a fire escape.

In my defence, some idiot put a Street Boy in front of it. The fact that all my life-sustaining bodily processes still manage to occur in his presence is a miracle. Seeing beyond Street Boy to his surroundings? Not possible.

Actually, that’s a point. How does Street Boy get in if it only opens from the outside?

I peer at the door. It remains resolutely blank and black before my eyes. It calls me an idiot too, a massive smirk on its face. Lures the word round its tongue and mocks me with the meticulous arousing cruelty of Street Boy’s contemptuous mumble.

I am being mocked by a door. New low.

My eyes squint into the darkness, looking for answers I won’t find.

They catch on something, a dark spot serving as a ray of light. A lump by the bottom of the door. I bend down and peer at it.

Half a brick. Propping the door open on its warped frame. Half a brick. Open. Open. I kick the brick aside and hook my foot under the gap in the doorframe and pull. I wobble. Precariously. My hands snatch out at the rickety railings for balance. I am a tightrope artist, blindly praying not to fuck up and trip and fall arse first into despair.

With a grudging creak that sounds remarkably like a contemptuous snort from some red-charmed lips, the door opens.

God bless all half-a-bricks.

I stumble into the gloom of the building, my footsteps ruining the silence like tracks in virgin snow. It’s pitch fucking black. No signs of life. No sounds of life. Just the smell of piss.

I really hope he isn’t here. He doesn’t belong here.

My voice won’t call out. Don’t think it can. My lungs are tingling with the thickness of oxygen and it’s choking me. I stumble blindly forth. I am a marginally less balding Lord Carnarvon pouring my curiosity into someone else’s tomb and all of its sins.

My eyes adjust and shapes start forming in grey dots out of the blankness. I take a few clunking steps forward. I’m far too fucking gangly to be stealth in situations like this. Don’t know why its important to be stealthy, since I’m here to see someone, but it matters. Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know anything. I don’t want to get hurt, that’s all. I will. Just don’t want to.

From round a far-off corner, light seems to be trying in vain to shake out some of the grey. I walk towards it. Six foot odd moth to a dark flame.

Wonder what this building used to be, before it was blackened and burnt out and being used as some decrepit stage for my own impending triumph of stupidity. Before the walls grew too heavy with secrets to care about safety anymore and all they get is all I used to want, to be able to look at Street Boy all the time. It’ll kill me now, to look and never touch. Even when he tells me no, this time, tosses the blunt force of disappointment in my face, it’s got to be better than me just shying away and spying on him again. Pretending that my lust is all gone, when I don’t think those blisters of anticipation will ever stop clawing at my skin when he’s near. I’d hate to look and not touch. Or touch and not feel. Anything’s better than that. It has to be.

I reach the edge of a wall. Fold myself around it. Dim light casts hopeless rays, vague illumination springing into life as I round the corner. Things slide slowly into focus, crushing me a little bit as my mind slots them together. Bricks, breezeblocks, walls, floorboards damp and cracking and blackened with ash and age. Boarded up spaces where windows used to be. One of those camping torches, probably stolen from a family home years ago, shedding yellow into the space. A black leather jacket dropped carelessly onto the floor, strewn like a victim in a killer’s wake. A pathetic stained mattress, thin, on the floor. Tab ends dropped all around. Spent matches. Dead lighters. Empty whiskey bottles. Broken glass strewn like underwear. Takeaway wrappers. Two shoes, kicked off and left deathly still in the far corner. Graffiti and blood stains on the walls.

Right there, in the centre of it all, there’s Street Boy.

Shirtless and sprawled in sleep. Hair crawling over his face, mouth parted, lying on his back, head twisted to one side as if one of the Bloke’s filthy hands is holding it there. Using his own arm as a pillow, lazy smudge of his lips against his pale skin. Breathing heavy but quiet. There’s something so fragile about him it cracks my heart.

He doesn’t stir as I walk into the room. I walk quiet as I can, not wanting to wake him. I’m just stealing the chance I never got last time, really. When he left me in my bedroom alone. I’ve never watched anyone sleep, never normally had the motive or opportunity. And though it feels stolen, this moment, ravaging the privacy of his loneliness, I can’t break it. I can scarcely blink, just in case he vanishes in the split second I’m not watching him. Watching him, seeing him here in front of me, every taut line of skin cast into languid by the light, I think he could so easily be mine. And I could so easily be something for him. And maybe out of the nothing we’ve got, something could be ours, and that would be just about the best thing I could imagine.

I keep creeping, conscious of how damn limbsy I am, towards the wall. I lean against it, then slide down until my arse finally hits the floor. Draw my knees up to my chest, fold my arms over them and rest my chin on the cross of my wrists. I just watch him and don’t touch, closer than I was before, watching him out my window, but so much fucking further away.

***

My arse is numb, but I don’t care. My mind’s running riot, tracing me in shapes next to him, tailoring my angular limbs to fit, let me curl up into him without looking ridiculous. All this height’s so unnecessary. He’d fit curled round me, like the night on Didz’s sofa, jeans pressing against my skin and one arm protectively round me, the knot of my spine arching into the breathless contact of the planes of his chest. I could pull one of his arms over me, just to feel the weight of it. As if it was designed to hold me there, next to him. But then my legs are too sodding long. I’d have to fold myself double or just let my feet hang off the mattress, and then I’d just ruin that graceless aesthetic that swarms all around him with the contortion of my form. If he stretched his arm out, I could lie on it too. Face to face, my left arm over his waist, letting it rise and fall into my touch. But I’d spoil that too, be the sharp exclamation next to his curious question mark!?

I’d fit in the curve of his shoulder. Lay on our sides, facing each other, legs tangling round each other as if to compensate for the bed sheets he doesn’t have. Curve my neck forward, draw him into me. Let his lips part for air against my pasty chest and my heart wage war on the world. Wrap us both up in each other until our skins blend in the dim light and I don’t fuck things up anymore.

Don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here. Don’t care. My arse can start writing sonnets about how painful and tingly it is on the hard floor, but unless it drops off I’m not moving a muscle. Because in sleep I can dream him into whatever role I want him to play, and it’s no match for reality, but sometimes its better that way. One of those things you can keep, even if it’s just for yourself.

Maybe I don’t want something real, after all. Could just have this, see where that gets me.

Steady rise and fall of his chest. It’s so much easier like this, for both of us. He’s oblivious and I’m in awe, and what more could you ask for?

***

“’Fuck you doing here?”

Huh? What? Who? Huh?

“Fuckssake… Pete?”

Man alive my arse has been ironed flat and nailed to a billboard. Dear God.

“Pete?”

There’s a mumble of noise and shuffles getting louder and louder and coming in my direction. My arse. My glorious arse.

Something makes sharp contact with my ankle. My eyes grunt open. Oh. I fell asleep. Bugger it.

“Pete?”

My eyes squint. I look up. Street Boy looming over me. He kicks me again.

“What the fuck you doing here?”

I liked it better when he was asleep and my arse was awake.

“What…timessit?”

My voice croaks out like I’m knocking on heaven’s door, hoarse from all the cigarettes I shouldn’t have smoked last night.

He shrugs. He’s still shirtless and lethargic, shoes pulled back on to step through the debris. He towers over me now, and I can’t help but feel that’s the way it should be. But he’s all showered in confusion and leaning toward anger. Wish I was at home. I’d have drool on my pillow and pain in my heart rather than all over my suit sleeves. I can’t keep my flapping trap shut even in sleep. Makes for a pleasant morning greeting.

“Pete.”

He keeps saying my name. It thrills me. Standing above me, looking down, it’s like he’s untouchable for a reason now.

My fingers curl round the fraying ripped denim of the end of his jeans. Tug at a loose thread. Twist the blue thread round my fingertips and watch the material bow to my every impulse. Like watching myself through someone else’s eyes. Through everyone else’s eyes.

Street Boy sighs. My mouth opens to fill the silence. Drown out the crackle of static between us.

“My arse is numb.”

He rolls his eyes a bit, wearily, takes a step or two back to allow me space to scramble to my feet like I’m an ungainly ostrich that’s fled to his meagre sanctuary in the night. If things had been different, can’t help but imagine him smiling at something like that. Rolling his eyes with affection, holding out a hand and dragging me to my feet, making an obvious lewd remark in a mocking sultry tone and making me laugh. He’d just let me be close to him and he’d like me, instead of making me feel like all I do is wear him out.

Swallow the lump in my throat and scramble to my feet. Dignity is a fickle mistress. She’s deserted me again. Street Boy doesn’t even bother to watch. I’m an unwanted morning after, scrambling for my clothes and wobbling on yesterday’s high heels and wiping off smeared lipstick without any of the pleasure of the night before.

His blue eyes regard me now, eyelids hanging low and lashes fluttering half-shut when he blinks. That blue just gone blank. He’s drained.

I was right: he’s had enough.

This goes through me and I don’t feel too much of anything.

“I’ll just go.”

My voice is small. I’m an impostor here, all my hideous wants and fucking needs more repulsive than the squalor he lives in.

There’s the scarcely imperceptible half-shrug of one shoulder as he turns away from me. I watch his shoulder blades and skin collide. Swallow again. I don’t dare sigh. There’s no rap of tension up his back, no sign that this is an act or a game, no sign at all that he wants me. Was there nothing but me and my lust-blind eyes all along?

Don’t understand why we’re so worn through. It shouldn’t do this to us.

We shouldn’t do it to ourselves.

I don’t want this to be it: just his back, those fucking curls and dimples, jeans clinging to his arse and my eye-line and me in my wrinkled suit, eyes fixed on him, wide and not wishing anymore.

What does it take to break a heart? A phone with a missing nine key, three mint humbugs, four pound thirty seven and a fresh pack of Marlboro Lights. If it’s the little things that make your heart swell, it’s the little things that break you too.

I start moving. Keep going. Walking away.

My footsteps are too pathetic to even be worthy of sounding like goodbye. It’s not the end. It never started. But that’s okay, because you can’t miss what you never really had.

***

I keep walking mechanically. What I thought about starting walking earlier – seems like days ago – I was right. Which is of some comfort. It’s nice to be right. Starting moving is the hard part. Once you start, you can just keep going. Which is nice.

I get halfway towards the door, that fucking fire escape door, shoulders hanging my arms limp by my sides, body moving in ways that seem unnaturally uncomplicated given everything, when I stop. It’s just a pause. A respite. I feel as if I’m still moving. All my muscles are tense and screaming. Well. They’re not really screaming. Let’s not be melodramatic here. Over-acting does no one any good. Maybe they’re just protesting a bit. Yes. That fits better. Still. Should probably go back to walking. No rest for the wicked.

My mind’s an actual blank, not fresh and begging like the second page in a new notebook, but like a blackboard hastily swept clean my a misbehaving child who’s eager to leave at the end of the day.

Funny; chalk dust gets into the skin. Could feel it on Wolfman’s fingers when he touched me, making me nothing more than another plain surface for him to write out all the great ideas he claimed he contained.

It’s still dark outside. There’s no creak of floorboards behind me. Realise my thumb stings. Look at it. There’s a cut, small, in the skin. Must’ve split it open on the cheap lighter. Still. Nothing to write home about. It’ll probably have gone by tomorrow. Like everything, really.

Don’t know what to do.

Suppose I should go.

Think I’ve forgotten how to blink. Eyes just stare at things. In between everything. It’s all a bit further away than it used to be. But, okay. Yes.

My knees are bony things. Press sharp against my trousers when I walk. Lucky I don’t wear tight trousers. My ankles are not something to be contained and revered by tight fabric.

Careful now with the door. Don’t want it to slam. I’m not making any noise, and that’s probably safest. Things happen when you make noise. There’s no fire escape safety bar handle on the inside of the door. That half a brick is more useful than it lets you think. Otherwise the door would just slam shut like a cell. Lock everything inside.

Back at the top of the fire escape. Where everything started really. Where he first stumbled out of, squinting and furious into the daylight. Threw up over the railing. Scowled. Kicked at a broken bottle, lips spitting curses I couldn’t hear, but the venom made my hair stand on end. Then turned around and walked back in. Slammed the door shut. I didn’t move all morning. Just. Watched him.

Feel a bit sick again. But it’s alright, because I don’t feel that much of anything. So.

I don’t know what to do now. What do people do now?

Hate it when there’s no proper ending to things. When things just fade away. Like you never really believed something would be forever, really, but you let yourself believe it a little bit, once, and it still stings when it doesn’t snap and break – just slowly fades to grey. And there’s no pain or crying, because it’s so slight you don’t notice it till it’s gone, and then you’re not ever really sure you had it in the first place. Like when your English teacher just skips a few of the ‘after school tutorials’ you were supposed to have. Like when someone lets you borrow a key to their flat, so you can sneak in before their fiancé gets home, and then you leave it there one day and they never bother to give you it back. Like when they get their personal assistant to cancel a meeting you never had. Like when they tell your best mate that you’re shagging his boyfriend. And it all just fades. And it’s so subtle, the change. And the secrets and sneaking around you did well, kept them to yourself. Only you’re not sure if it was ever real at all, when the bites on your neck and the scratches on your back fade. Makes you think that maybe you just imagined it all along, built yourself some happiness out of fiction, and that the only place you’ll ever not be lonely will be in the small cramped space of your own mind, where you’re safe from everything but yourself.

Fingers linger on the railing at the end. Wish I could feel. Metallic touch might make it real.

Night’s such a deathly silent thing.

There’s nothing more to say, really. Nothing to think. Silence was always my most terrifying friend.

***

I woke up the morning after in a bus shelter. There’s nothing like trying to kip outside with the wind howling around your ankles and the stench of stale god knows what to summon your resolve about being vigilant in your job so as to never end up sleeping rough. Also squashes any nice ideas about only leaving your flat with enough money for bus fare and no means of contacting anyone to come get you. And makes you wish you’d listened to your Nan a bit more when she was busy extolling the virtues of thermal underwear.

That was three days ago. Don’t think I’ve actually slept since. Don’t think I’ve done anything worthy of note since. Got up. Went to work. Came home. Normally I’d be out, eyes dangling hooks to catch anyone who’d have me. No better place to lose yourself than in the grateful arms of someone else. But. No. Not this time.

My mind can’t stay away from him. I cordon off the images of him with ropes. Lock him away. Force everything I can as far away as possible from me. But he’s there, all the time. Like my hands are imitating him with every faint gesture they make. Like my eyes are so fucking tired they burn like his do, just angry. My body’s just a composite of fakes of him, of everything he’s too good to be.

Just keep thinking about when it all went wrong. That fault line that cracked us. And I don’t know where it is, and I can’t think of how to find it. Don’t know what I could do if I did. These things I cannot change kill me.

And its strange, y’know, sitting on my sofa, shirt off because my heating’s gone haywire and I now live in a totally tropical paradise that stinks of stale microwaveable food products. Because I just keep thinking about how things could’ve gone, running my fingers over the what ifs we all cling to like my reverent lips over his skin. How it all could’ve been different, so fucking easily.

My fingers flick ash everywhere when they catch the end of my cigarette. Good. Ashtrays are for the weak.

The TV crackles with static when I hit the standby button on the remote, the noise filling my flat, crackling and awkward like everything seems to be. I miss him. He’s still there, loitering around that back alley with all the lethargy and defeat I never thought I’d see piled high upon his shoulders. Glaring up at the window, my window, skin blushing with anger, furious when he did. Me playing witness to his transactions, the Blokes following up that fire escape, I can’t even tell if it hurt. I’m not jealous or angry anymore. It’s not resignation, either, not quite. Because it’s different for him too, now. Before, he had that taint of rage that teased him with destruction curling its legs round the bitterness of acceptance, like tenner-and-I’m-anybody’s was all life would be for him. I don’t know what’s changed, really, but somewhere, riddled into his slow flick of a spent cigarette and the lazy unzip of his jacket as it swallows him, there’s a wish. Like maybe his long fingers are wrapping round the same what if as mine.

And I just keep thinking.

About how maybe I’ll go back and kick that half-a-brick aside again; or wait in that back alley, littering the street with my nerves. Just go and wait for him, see what he does. Get that flawless skin close to me again, see his eyes narrow in suspicion and confusion, because he’s not capable of shedding those vicious skins yet. And I can see myself standing there, leaning back against the wall, wearing some faceless suit and letting my eyes anxiously check my cigarette as it burns down, flitting back and forth between that black door and the glowing end turning slowly into ash. Street Boy won’t appear from there, though. Come round the corner instead, looking a bit misplaced in the daylight, pupils contracted and eyes colder than normal. Lips not ragged and parted around a mumble or a snarl but pressed together, not looking like they’re already gaping and kissing clumsily and desperately against my sweat-pale chest, but as if they’re all that’s holding him back. Skin all that same shade, not bleached in the sunlight, making his features more precise, stains painted with a steady hand over a black and white photograph in garish block acrylic. Walking over to me, t shirt too baggy and on display, collar all ripped in some testament to strange hands treating him like he’s some body for people to paw over.

When he gets closer, he’ll stop looking at my face. I’ll think it’s out of embarrassment, but tell myself its stupid to think he’d be scared around me anymore. He’ll drop his gaze, focus on my bony knees instead, knowing my eyes won’t move off him for a second. Then there’ll be that quirk of his upper lip, a stretch of a wry smile, and two blue eyes claiming control, lids raising up to pin me under the bars of his eyelashes again. And I’ll just smile. Try and keep my lips pressed together at first, because I don’t like getting my wonky teeth out, if I can help it. But it’ll press at the corners of my mouth till it splits, and the biggest grin’ll stretch onto my face and I’ll feel it, that spark deep set in my eyes, devilled excitement that I don’t even want to try and keep down. Air between us crackling like my fucking TV static, and I’ll probably think of that then, let a shred of bitterness cast its shadow over anticipation for a second. But then he’ll be awkward, arm swinging slightly, wanting to touch but not daring, lips slightly parted around an incoherent mutter that makes me smile so hard I might burst.

We won’t say anything. Because we’ll be scared, really, because things get messy when we talk and even more sodding messy when we don’t. But we both won’t be as wide-eyed and green and naïve as we used to, I don’t think. We won’t say anything; we’ll just touch. Even if it does all go wrong, at least we’ll have that contact, so fucking base and simple and such a complex thrill, at least we’ll have that instead of just a pathetic argument neither of us wants to win.

You need that, sometimes.

I’ll hesitate, like I always do, because some habits don’t flicker and fade as you’d like. Shaking fingers are the hardest ones to reach out. But I’ll do it. Something insignificant, inconsequential. Tug at the end of his leather jacket where it hangs loose and open, pull it between my fingers and realise how it’s not such a part of him as I thought – just clothes, just leather, just the front. Tug a bit harder, place the hint, the implication, between us and let him do what he likes with it. Let him smile down at my fingers at the promise of contact, a bit shy, really, because smiles still don’t sit too well with him. Doesn’t trust them enough to stay.

It’ll be simple, though, this time. One of us will move – won’t be able to tell which – and I’ll tell myself it’s me, even though I can still feel the rough angles of irregular brick against my back. He’ll wait, and I’ll wonder which one of them is holding him back and who the desire I can see raking its nails over his skin, leaving the traces of red in its wake, really belongs to. Carl or Street Boy. He’ll come closer. We won’t touch yet. Denim from his slightly too-big jeans brushing against my knees. I’ll want him. The tell-tale signs you can see, the frantic breathing and frenetic pulse, they’ll be a given. But what I don’t understand is that…charge. That thing between us that holds us somewhere between drowning anxiety and toxic lust and twists and contorts us until the bonds on our restraint snap and we can just touch. I don’t understand it, but that doesn’t make it any less inescapable.

He’ll make the first move.

Step closer, step into me, keeping me back against the wall but not pinning me like a cheap rosette like he did in my flat. No hands slamming me back, controlling me. One snarled into my hair, the other making a useless grab for my arm, but all the little flaws will make me smile. Because it’s Carl that makes mistakes. Not Street Boy. Then. His mouth on mine. God, his mouth on mine. No doubt that it’ll unravel me. Soft at first, soft for him at any rate, because I know what he’s capable of. Not teasing; no, he won’t be out to taunt me or test me this time, because it’ll be done. Just be him there, with me, a quiet plea for me to respond he’ll know I can’t begin to refuse. Fuck, I won’t want to refuse it. Just his lips at first, on mine, garish red dragging that pink of mine I never really liked too much into something deeper, darker. Parting, letting what we want take control rather than either one of us, want being simple where we so spectacularly aren’t. Lips and breath shared in desperation. His body softening into mine, where, fuck, it fits so fucking well. Slight bend and press of his knees as he leans into me, my hands touching him: not his skin, but the parts around him that make him so much of what I thought he was. Black hair, black jacket. And I’ll smile too much to even kiss, because I lost my heart to a creature of dark and got so much giddy hope from it. And I’ll bite and snatch at his mouth, like I always want to. Won’t feel bad about it, this time, won’t be too nervous of what he’ll think to allow myself to do what I like. He’ll mutter something into my mouth – a curse, most likely – and that’ll make me grin like an idiot. And I won’t care. At all.

My fingers white against the end of his jacket again, pulling harder, keeping him there, wanting more. I’ll know that fucking filthy smirk is about to cross his face before he does. Know the twist of an eyebrow raise and flick of the head towards his dirty, grubby home that’ll come after. And, fuck, he must know what he’ll see on my face by now. The smile couldn’t leave if it tried.

I’ll wonder, when I’m up there, up against one of those grey walls inside that burnt out building, neck arched under the spell of his mouth biting and teasing at my skin, whether it’s real. Or whether I split in two at some point and I’m still behind the glass of my office window, watching him lead some version of me that is starting to match up with reality up those stairs. When his jacket gets dropped to the floor and his shirt gets pulled off a bit too easily over his head, I’ll probably decide that it is all a daydream. When he stalks off round that corner, backing off to that mattress that sends shivers devoid of pleasure down my spine, and I trip over his discarded t shirt like I’m still seventeen and gagging for it, reality might press in a little closer. Make my cock harder and my skin spark. Because, this time, it’ll be vivid without being a nightmare.

The touch of skin on skin never changes.

It’s always something else with me, that. Simple electric contact that means everything. Makes me cheap, easy, in some peoples’ eyes – it breaks me not to have it. Looks and words only do so much. Human touch, God, it stops your skin being familiar and necessary and nothing else. Stops you being cold and alone. Makes you more. Touching his skin gets me every single time.

Fingertips lacing down the curve of his back, all the twists in bone and muscle that tempt me. Down to the very base of his back, the curl and plane where my hand fits, thumb in one of those dimples, pressing him into me. Will feel his skin through the cotton of the shirt, smiling at the reversal; me fully clothed, him shirtless and gasping under the pressure of my feeble touch. For a moment, the pliancy of his skin will command me. Make me want to shove him back hard against anything, strip him of his clothes and just have him. Move my hand lower, grab him, claim him, see him writhe when my fingers push inside him, see him fight back that pathetic urge to beg, see his spine arch and snap as I fuck him. For a moment. But then I’ll remember myself and that some things I don’t ever want to do. The temptation to try and break someone because you can is overwhelming. I’ll never do it. Never. Pray to God Street Boy doesn’t ever make me.

We’ll both fumble with the buttons on my shirt, both try and wrangle off the jacket and tie. He’ll undo my trouser fly with one hand and make my heart sting a little bit, thinking how he shouldn’t know how to do that. Other hand in my hair, at my chest, anything, anywhere, just on me so I know it’s there. That he’s there.

This time, when he’s over me on a mattress, I’m not held down. My face isn’t shielded from him so as not to offend or repulse. He’s over me, but he’s there. Face to face. Eyes firing into mine, mouth gaping, a red slash in his flushed face. Acting for pleasure, not some warped punishment I didn’t understand. Nerves’ll make me clumsy, make my breath stutter out in half-laughs tinged round the edges with disbelief. He’ll keep glancing up at me, a bit more scared than I’d ever expect, as fingers that are paid to be sure of their power are shy exploring my skin. This time he’ll see my face, the wide open rapture of my eyes as my back arcs and forces every part of him closer and further into me. This time there’ll be that ecstasy for real, before my eyes and not imagined in my mind, completely tangible but completely unbelievable. The abandon. Lips open, stealing my breath as he thrusts inside me and our mouths meet again somehow and using it to gasp my name. Eyes fluttered shut, eyelids painted so dark in the dim light, it’s like all those colours merged into something debased as that blue are pouring out of him and staining his skin, leaving only the dilated rapture of his pupils behind. Sweat making our skins slide, desperation and eternal frustration making our bodies irregular, snapping into and out of time with each other, his hipbones digging into me, my bony ankles wrapped too tight around his back and holding him harsh in place. It won’t matter to him, the pleasurable mistakes we both make, and that’ll make me rake my blunt fingernails over his back just to hear the hiss of breath and see the faint traces of surprise around the edges of his eyes. He won’t be out to break me this time, just thrusting into me harder and touching me until I’m too far gone to even shout the curse of his name, just let it drop from my lips in a half-gasp into his ear as his teeth sink into the skin of my neck and I’m so completely his I don’t think it’ll ever fade.

In the present of my flat, my hand’s moving so fucking fast around my cock I feel half dead already. The thought of him, gold and over me, sweat-slick and next to me, happy and with me – our bodies fitting together and him falling asleep, drooling on my chest and being embarrassed about it when consciousness comes knocking again – has me coming. Hard.

As I sit there, grabbing at Kleenex and wishing I’d had the damn patience to take my suit trousers off before imagining Street Boy, before imagining Carl, I smile. Because even though it’s me, alone, like it always is and supposed to be, I don’t feel bad about it. Don’t feel lonely. Because I think, maybe, it’s okay this time. That Carl’s probably out there trying to forget he knows I get the 143 bus home. Forget what colour boxers I wear. Forget how it sounds when my voice gets the better of me and says his name when I’d give anything not to. But he can’t. Not this time. And I think that never-never land of my mind isn’t such a far cry from what reality could be. This time. Maybe. This time.


End file.
